Council to Discuss Selection for Police Oversight Commission on Monday

The City Council on Monday will vote to direct the city attorney to prepare a resolution establishing the process for appointment of members to the Police Oversight Commission. 

Last month, councilmembers pushed for a report from city staff designed to address the variables that will go into selecting members of Pasadena’s oversight commission.

After reviewing policies of other communities — including Anaheim’s selection by lottery from each district, Berkeley’s nomination from a pool of candidates, and Long Beach’s appointment by the mayor and confirmation by city council staff — “discernable best practices have been identified as each community works to fashion a system that best fits its needs,” states the report to the council.

“It is a policy question on which the City Council should deliberate and ultimately determine,” according to the report. 

Although it will deliberate on the matter on Monday, the composition of the council will be decidedly different from when the members of the commission are actually chosen.

On Dec. 7, District 5 Councilmember Victor Gordo will be sworn in as mayor and former Planning Comisionmember Felicia Williams will replace District 2 Councilmember Margaret McAustin. 

That meeting, however, is expected to be largely ceremonial in nature, with Gordo, Williams, along with Councilmembers Tyron Hampton, Gene Masuda, and Steve Madison–other winners in the primary election — taking the oath of office.

A meeting for Dec. 14 has not been scheduled, and council metings for Dec. 21 and Dec. 28 have been canceled, according to the city’s website.

The council voted to establish an 11-member commission at its Oct. 5 meeting, along with a separate, independent auditor.

Councilmembers from each of the city’s seven districts will nominate a commissioner, and the mayor will nominate another member. In addition, three at-large commissioners from “community-based” groups will be nominated.

The council will have final approval on all the commissioners and the auditor.

In October, councilmembers questioned if they should vet their respective nominees in some public forum; what qualifications, skills sets and life experiences will be sought from commission members; how nominees for three at-large seats, chosen from among community-based groups, will be selected; whether commission members will receive compensation; what training commission members might need to undergo before being seated; and whether current or former police offices would be eligible to serve.

“Applications for the police oversight commission need to be public and distributed ASAP,” wrote a local resident only listed as Jon in correspondence to the City Council. “The commission needs to be in place by 11/30. We demand ongoing crossroads and trauma training. It’s abhorrent that PPD shoots and kills indiscriminately while expecting us to believe they are protecting us.”

Locally, the conversation over police reform goes back to the early 90s when local barber Michael Bryant was killed after a pursuit. The subject resurfaced a decade later after the deaths of Maurice Clark and LaMont Robinson in 2004, and again in 2012 after the death of Kendrec McDade.

But none of those local cases were enough to move the needle on oversight among a majority of City Council members.

Instead, a non-local officer-involved death moved a majority of the council toward supporting some form of oversight.

After protests swept the nation in response to the May 25 death of Minnesotan George Floyd, who died during an encounter with police, the majority of the council said they supported oversight, although the exact model had not been discussed by the board.