Last in a series
Re “In Defense of the Police Chief”
Interim City Manager Lamont Ewell, who completes his Culver City assignment on Thursday afternoon, is skeptical of the 77 to 12 no-confidence vote reported last week by the police union against Chief Don Pedersen.
“I will just say that margin is inconsistent with what I have been told by officers when I have interacted with them,” Mr. Ewell said.
He did not attempt to characterize the unique voting program as a form of intimidation, but he said an officer told him he was intimidated by the union’s public vote, member by member.
Was the unusual un-secret balloting square and fair?
The question arose frequently among supporters of Mr. Pedersen a month ago when reports of the three-day open-faced balloting process were leaked to this newspaper.
In a repudiation of the traditional secret ballot, voting officers were obligated to affix their names to the ballots they cast.
Sources said at the time that the board of the Police Officers Assn. designed the strategy specifically to discourage backsliding by fence-straddlers and others.
To guarantee that there was no mistaking who voted for and against the no-confidence campaign, each voter was ordered to personally hand his ballot, with his name prominently displayed, to a board member.
Only then would the paper ballot be placed in the counting area.
Detractors of the process said it was a fireproof method for guarding against slippage by officers who either later would change their mind or deny to friends they opposed the no-confidence stance.
Cautiously formulating his response, Mr. Ewell said:
“I don’t see this method as an unbiased way to survey your membership. I think a balanced way to do it would be to send the ballots out, have them come back by mail so that people don’t have to look as though they are going against the POA leadership, and that they are giving their actual opinion about what they feel.”
The subject returned to voter intimidation.
The 56-year-old Mr. Ewell, a Southern California native who has been a chief executive in municipal governments on both coasts, recalled his earlier days when he was a firefighter.
“I know, especially as a union member as a young firefighter, I certainly did not want to disagree with the leadership of the fire union.
“If I was handed a ballot and told ‘Fill it out and give it back to me,’ I would be less likely to give my true opinion. I am a new firefighter, and I don’t have that much time on the job. I don’t want to start creating hassles within my own union.”
