Pasadena : Judge Upholds Ordinance

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has denied City Director William Paparian’s request to invalidate an ordinance reorganizing the city’s volunteer commissions.

The ordinance, approved in December, set up a new appointment process aimed at increasing the ethnic, geographic and socioeconomic diversity of the commissions.

But Paparian said the ordinance, devised at a private meeting attended by Directors Rick Cole, Kathryn Nack and William Thomson, largely maintained the status quo.

Paparian filed suit against the city in January claiming that the private meeting violated the state’s open-meeting law. The board has denied that it acted improperly.

Superior Court Judge Miriam Vogel ruled last week that even if the open- meeting law had been violated, the board had rectified that problem by discussing the ordinance in subsequent public meetings. Paparian said he intends to appeal.