The heat from the selection of the Signal Hill Police Chief was stifling. But he is reversing it.
Mr. Pedersen — whether by accident or wise voting — seems likely to make even the closest players forget about the controversy.
Picture That Defies Criticism
Everything about the Pedersen family appearance was just right — not too prim, not too plain.
Graceful and gracious.
They impressed the medium-sized crowd in Council Chambers as the kind of family you would label pleasant, Middle America-nice, without exactly remembering what they looked like or what they were wearing.
The kind of people who might have marched in the Easter Parade last Sunday.
At the Passover seder, he would have been cast in the role of the Wise Son.
Medium of height, slender, even narrow, Mr. Pedersen’s sandy hair is closely cropped, possibly sparking a comparison with a youthful version of Darryl Gates, the former LAPD chief, or Ray Walston, the late television performer.
His predecessor, John Montanio, was described as youthful and a Boy Scout.
Not Mr. Pedersen, even though he is almost a decade younger.
The immediate suspicion is that he is a serious person, no-nonsense. His reading glasses are rimless, not a choice of the fashion-conscious.
“The consummate professional,” says Charles Herbertson, the Public Works Director of Culver City, who was a colleague of Mr. Pedersen’s in the 1990s when both were employed by the city of Hawthorne.
Chief Pedersen, who has headed the Signal Hill Police Dept. for five years, plans to spend the next nineteen days doing what he has for more than seven years, going to work every day in Signal Hill.
“I want to make sure the transition is as smooth as possible,” he said. “I have a lot of work to do.”
Even though he was unexpectedly sworn in on Monday night by retiring Mayor Albert Vera, that ritual will be tucked into a nearby drawer. It will remain dormant until Monday, May 8, his first official day in the employ of Culver City.
In honor of the new chief’s presence, the City Council and the audience in Council Chambers accorded Mr. Pedersen a standing ovation.
Publicly, Council members wanted to let the new chief know that they expect his working address to be Culver City until he is much older.
Councilmen still are perturbed by Mr. Montanio’s avrupt departure after calling this job the dream of his lifetime. He was on his way out the door at the nineteen-month mark.
Councilman Alan Corlin said very soberly that he did not expect to hire another police chief before he leaves office in two years.
Mr. Corlin also publicly apologized to the chief for having to find out from a journalist that he had been hired. “I think that was outrageous,” he said. “We are a better city than that.”
Vice Mayor Gary Silbiger was more optimistic about the chief’s longevity. “I look forward to working closely with you, Chief, for the next thirty, forty years,” he said.
Postscript
Mr. Pedersen said afterward that he believes in “pro-active police work, positive enforcement contacts, to go out there and enforce the law impartially and aggressively. I want to make sure we can make this community as safe as possible.”
Examining a definition a little closer, Mr. Pedersen said “pro-active does not mean aggressive. It means you go out there and you address the problems, especially the problems identified by the community.”
Perhaps the most important lesson he has learned in his twenty-three-year career “is communication with the public, with the business community as well as the organization and city staff.
“You have to be able to speak freely. That is the best way we can provide service.”
