Guest Opinion | David Coher: Civilian Oversight is ‘The Pasadena Way’

When I first became a Planning Commissioner, I was quickly educated in The Pasadena Way. “What’s that? Being nice to our fellow Pasadenaens?”, I naively asked a fellow Commissioner. “Oh, you’ll see,” she said with a wry smile. Indeed, I did. Over the past five years I have been lucky enough to participate in numerous meetings extending well into the evening, discussing the finer points of land use and administrative procedure. (And, believe it or not, I still consider myself lucky to be allowed to do so!)

The Pasadena Way, I learned, is public engagement and deep involvement. It means getting ‘buy-in’ from all sides. In this manner, The Pasadena Way means that our City differs from many others, as while we may not fully agree, we are all supportive enough to see to the success of our City. And, yes, it also means being nice to our fellow Pasadenaens – especially since we’re going to need to get their buy-in sooner or later if we hope to get anything done!

I believe that The Pasadena Way requires us to establish a civilian oversight commission for our Police Department.

Pasadena has 26 citizen-led commissions and boards – twice as many as most cities our size. Our neighbors shape everything from the design of our City to parking rates. Civic engagement in all matters is The Pasadena Way. And, our commitment to The Pasadena Way is broadly based across our City – there are enough of us serving and contributing to fill the Pasadena Playhouse.

Indeed, our Police Department invokes The Pasadena Way on its website, because “[f]or the Pasadena Police Department, the implementation of Values Based Policing is the next evolutionary step – a continuation and further enhancement of the Pasadena Way.” This makes sense as the work of our Police Department is simply too important not to be included in our participatory model of governance. As the second largest single budget item and staffed with professionals we trust with our safety, their work is indispensable, vital, and integral to our City’s operation. We place trust in our Police Department to keep us safe – allowing them to use force to ensure our safety. Such important matters should be governed in a manner befitting Pasadena.

In this light, it is surprising, if not shocking, that we don’t already have a civilian oversight commission for our Police Department. The need and desire for civilian involvement in such matters has never been more apparent in our community. But, furthermore, we see the benefits of such civilian involvement in the daily governance of our City. For us to deny its importance to the work of our police officers is to both deny them the support that they need from us in trying times such as these and to deny ourselves the benefits of The Pasadena Way.

The opinions expressed do not represent the official position of the City of Pasadena or its Planning Commission.