The hottest question in Culver City, this week and into the foreseeable near future, centers on the denouement of the rebellion by leaders of the police union against Chief Don Pedersen.
Speculation has been rampant about how far President Adam Treanor of the Police Officers Assn. and his likeminded colleagues in the 91-person union are willing to go to force out Mr. Pedersen.
There is no legal solution for them, though everyone agrees that strongly unhappy employees can make a workplace screamingly intolerable for a boss they dislike.
If the sand is here, will they draw a line in it?
A sizzling question: Will they be able to attract younger and new officers into their hardline camp?
If they fall short of their desired objective in the election, will the precise count become known?
Will the rebels man the barricades to the end to dislodge Chief Pedersen?
How deeply does their commitment lie?
From the beginning, Chief Pedersen’s allies have feared that what they call “raw coercion “ and “intimidation tactics” employed by the ringleaders will melt the resolve of borderline cops who insist they are neutral. Presumably, these middle-aislers just want to perform their duties and not become inextricably entangled in department politics, a hostile environment that could be career-changing for some players.
For their part, they maintain that because the Police Chief has offered to meet with the membership to hear their grievances, and been forcefully rebuffed, the uprising is not merely about settling complaints but rather settling scores.
The union’s peculiar three-day no-confidence election, that started Tuesday morning, was due to conclude this afternoon.
But what does that mean? What does it portend.
Recent vote counts have become mythical events with the POA.
Some months ago this relatively new team of POA leaders — they probably would resist being labeled rebels — conducted what they called a survey of their membership’s feelings about the state of the Police Dept.
The results remain a tightly guarded secret.
They refused to divulge them, and sources in the department say they are just as pessimistic about learning today’s final score.
According to the POA’s conceptual, but not numerical counts, a majority of their membership in the survey was critical of Mr. Pedersen’s style the last four years in attempting to reform the culture of the department away from the One Man Only rule during the 28 years of Ted Cooke’s term on Duquesne.
