When interviewing candidates for police chief behind closed doors, the South Pasadena City Council failed to mention it in the agenda leading to allegations that they violated California’s open meeting law, the Brown Act. -db
Pasadena Star-News
August 18, 2010
By Brian Charles
SOUTH PASADENA – A reserve cop with ties to the police officer’s union and a former Maywood police chief each confirmed Wednesday they are finalists for the city’s open police chief job.
Reserve officer Joe Payne and former Maywood Chief Frank Hauptmann met with the City Council behind closed doors Wednesday evening. An agenda for the executive session was labeled “performance evaluation of the city manager,” which an open government expert said violates California’s Brown Act.
“If their plan is to interview for police chief, the Brown Act says the agenda must say that much,” said Terry Francke, head of Californians Aware. “They needn’t name the candidates or say the word interview, but they have to say the closed session is related to hiring one or more candidates for police chief.”
Francke said South Pasadena’s agenda is “misleading.”
While City Manager John Davidson claimed the process has been “open and transparent,” he refused to give the names of the candidates and would not confirm whether any interviews were to be conducted Wednesday night.
“I will neither confirm or deny we are meeting with candidate for the police chief job,” he said.
Davidson said the agenda met the requirements laid out by the Brown Act, California’s open meeting law that requires agencies to list the topics to be discussed behind closed doors. Davidson declined to comment on why South Pasadena listed performance evaluation instead of interviews, and referred questions about the agenda to the city’s legal counsel, Richard Adams.
“You’ll have to ask the city attorney why we put it on the agenda like that,” Davidson said.
Adams did not return calls seeking comment.
City councilmen Philip Putnam, Richard Schneider and David Sifuentes did not respond to requests for comment.
Davidson said he will take the input from City Council and could announce his decision on the new police chief as early as Sept. 15.
Copyright 2010 The Los Angeles News Group