Audit Sought of Pasadena’s Hiring Policies

Responding to complaints of employment discrimination against blacks, City Manager Donald F. McIntyre said he’ll recommend that the city Board of Directors hire a firm to audit the city’s hiring and promotion policies.

McIntyre said the review will give the city “a clean bill of health,” but if problems are found, they will be corrected.

The recommendation was disclosed by McIntyre at a city board meeting convened Tuesday night at Jackie Robinson Park to report on issues of concern to heavily minority northwest Pasadena and to hear public comment. About 200 people attended the meeting, and much of their concern focused on minority hiring.

Last week, Eugene Pickett Jr., a Jackie Robinson Center volunteer who helped organize the meeting, gave the board a three-page letter outlining grievances by employees, including a charge that racism has blocked the career advancement of blacks in city positions.

Pickett strongly criticized Deputy City Manager Edward Aghjayan, accusing him of a “rude and uncaring attitude” toward residents, and called on the board to audit the Personnel Department.

At the meeting, Ibrahim Naeem, representing the Pasadena Urban League, seconded the criticisms raised in Pickett’s letter.

McIntyre replied by strongly defending Aghjayan as “one of (City Hall’s) most ardent and aggressive persons” in the recruitment of minorities.

But the city staff recommended the audit, he said, because of concern about the city’s hiring practices, not only among blacks but also among Latinos and Armenian-Americans.

Pasadena has been conducting a series of management audits of its departments, and the Personnel Department was set for audit in the next month, McIntyre said. Normally, he said, that would be done by the city Finance Department. But McIntyre said he will recommend that the audit be divided, with the Finance Department examining organization and staffing, and an outside firm looking into “the more complicated and political aspects of personnel--the part that has to do with recruitment, examinations, promotion and all of those matters that come under the heading of personnel policies.”

The complaints listed in Pickett’s letter included charges that black administrators are often given “acting” positions instead of permanent status, that the city meets affirmative action goals by employing white women while bypassing blacks, and that upper management doesn’t respect black employees.

Mayor William E. Thomson Jr. said the city is restrained by law from publicly discussing personnel matters.

McIntyre pointed out that under Pasadena’s council-manager form of government, he, not the board, is responsible for personnel management.

“The heart and soul of the council-management plan is the separation of personnel management from political responsibility over it,” McIntyre said. “Any mistakes made in the personnel system are the city manager’s, not the board’s.” He said the city has an elaborate system for reviewing employee grievances.

City Director Rick Cole said the board is responsible for the way city government is organized. He said the board recently removed human services from the jurisdiction of the deputy city manager, whose expertise is in public works and utilities, and created a new assistant city manager position.