Pasadena’s City Council Apologizes to Sheriff’s Dept.

Hoping to clear the way for sheriff’s deputies to work at the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl game, the Pasadena City Council issued a carefully worded apology Monday for statements council members made last week regarding “white supremacists” and “neo-Nazis” in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

At an emergency meeting, council members said they regretted “the characterization of our action last Tuesday evening by the Sheriff’s Department and Sheriff Sherman Block,” and that they were “sorry for any offense that this has caused.”

The council also voted to drop a condition that members of an allegedly white-supremacist club that operates in the Lynwood sheriff’s station be excluded from duty in Pasadena. But the council directed city officials to press privately for a contingent of deputies that would exclude members of the club, called the Vikings.

Block--who vowed last week to keep his deputies away from Pasadena on New Year’s Day for the first time in 35 years unless the council apologized--said he would respond to the council on Wednesday.

In a statement, Block said the Sheriff’s Department and employee groups would study the new council measure and respond at his monthly media gathering.

Council members had said they were only citing a finding last month by U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter that a “neo-Nazi, white-supremacist gang” operates among sheriff’s deputies. Several council members expressed concern that, because of the likelihood of demonstrations at the parade on New Year’s Day, officers providing security be especially tactful.

“It was a very appropriate, legitimate concern,” said Councilman Isaac Richard. “But maybe it would have been more appropriate to pursue it in private.”

American Indian, Latino and black groups have vowed to stage protests at the parade because of the selection of Cristobal Colon, a Spanish duke and direct descendant of Christopher Columbus, as a grand marshal. The choice dishonored millions of Indians who died or were enslaved after the arrival of the Spanish in the New World, critics said.

While approving a $400,000 allocation to hire 763 deputies, the council also directed City Manager Philip Hawkey and Police Chief Jerry Oliver to raise concerns about deputies with supposed disciplinary problems with the Sheriff’s Department.

“This is quiet diplomacy,” said Councilman William Thomson. “It’s exactly that--not getting involved with public statements about who’s not going to work here.”

The new measure, like the old one, urged the Sheriff’s Department to use as many women and minority deputies as possible.

Elsewhere, members of the Alliance of Native Americans held a vigil in front of Tournament of Roses headquarters on Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena on Monday, carrying placards that read, “This Is a Year of Mourning,” and “Columbus: Greed, Death, Destruction.” Two protesters pounded on tom-toms.

“We want Colon out,” said Vera Rocha, chief of the Gabrielino Nation. “We’ll do anything, anywhere, anytime for that.”

Protesters said they were not appeased by the naming of Rep. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (D-Colo.) as a co-grand marshal, representing the American Indian point of view in the parade, whose theme will be “Voyages of Discovery.” Campbell is the only American Indian in Congres.

The council measures were approved after more than two hours of discussion Monday morning, including a report from Chief Oliver that substituting California Highway Patrol officers for the deputies could cost the city an additional $500,000.

He said that CHP officers brought in from distant parts of the state would have to be housed and fed for as long as three days and that it would be costly to have equipment lent by the CHP brought to Pasadena.

“The sheriffs are the only game in town,” Thomson said. “From my standpoint, we go with the sheriffs or there’s no parade.”

Because of the city’s longstanding relationship with the Sheriff’s Department, Oliver said, using officers from any other law enforcement agency would be “second best.”

Councilman William Paparian, who introduced the compromise measure, said he was concerned about what he perceived as “threats” from Block. “The police telling government what they should or should not do--that’s a police state,” he said.

Mayor Jess Hughston and Vice Mayor Rick Cole both sat in the audience during the debate, because they had accepted free Rose Bowl tickets last year and, in the opinion of the city attorney, it would have been a conflict of interest if they had voted on a Tournament of Roses issue.

But Hughston chided his colleagues from the guest speaker’s podium. “This is like two young schoolchildren in a playground, reacting to each other,” he said. “Apologize--so what? We made a mistake and backed him (Block) into a corner, and he backed us into a corner. Forget that.”

* MEN’S CLUB: Only once has a woman helped select the Rose Queen and her court. B3