Protest Targets Chamber Official : Demonstration: Marchers wanted the executive director to resign. A black contract employee has accused him of harassment.

About 40 demonstrators representing black and women’s groups descended on the Colorado Boulevard headquarters of the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce last Thursday, chanting for the resignation of chamber Executive Director Bruce Ackerman.

The demonstrators, who charged that Ackerman had practiced racial discrimination and sexual harassment, waved placards that accused the chamber of a “cover-up,” and they chanted, “Bruce must go!” The chamber offices, on the ground floor of the Chamber of Commerce building, were closed for lunch.

Ackerman was accused in September of discriminating against chamber contract employee Allison Bedell, who is black, when she was bypassed for a promotion to a management job. Ackerman appointed a younger white woman to the job.

In her complaint, Bedell alleged that Ackerman had shown a pattern of favoritism toward a close circle of “young, white females with whom he often shares social and recreational activities and sometimes close personal relationships.”

Chamber attorney Carolyn Carlberg recently completed a six-week investigation into the allegations. She said Thursday that she had submitted her report to the chamber’s 10-member executive committee Wednesday evening.

Carlberg said that she has interviewed 24 people, but she would not disclose her findings.

Ackerman could not be reached for comment. But chamber Chairman Steve Ralph said he hoped that the executive committee would act on Carlberg’s report soon. “It certainly won’t take as long as the investigative part,” he said.

Ralph said that the chamber board will not release Carlberg’s report to the public because it involves sensitive personnel matters but that the board’s action would be announced. “We certainly understand the interest in the whole affair,” he said.

The demonstration included members of the Pasadena chapter of the NAACP, the Pasadena Black Municipal Employees Assn., the city’s Human Relations Commission and a Fuller Seminary alumni group.

Not all of them were insisting that Ackerman resign, however. Prentice Deadrick, head of the black municipal employees’ group, said: “That’s just chanting. I’m not calling for Bruce to resign. We shouldn’t prejudge anyone, not even Bruce.”

Current and former chamber employees have alleged to reporters that Ackerman sometimes fondled women in the office and asked female employees to share hotel rooms with him on business trips. Several co-workers confirmed Bedell’s account of her being denied a promotion.

Ackerman, who reportedly earns more than $100,000 a year, has headed the Pasadena chamber for five years. Bedell has continued working for the chamber, earning commissions for memberships she sells.

Demonstrators Thursday complained about a general insensitivity by the 1,700-member chamber toward the Pasadena minority community. As an example, they produced a memorandum written by Ackerman last April, to “select” brokers and developers who were also chamber members.

In the memorandum, Ackerman invited the brokers or developers to propose “outstanding properties” within the central part of the city as new sites for the chamber headquarters. The chamber’s current lease is scheduled to expire next year.

The demonstrators complained that Ackerman, who set out the desired central area with street boundaries, had excluded predominantly black Northwest Pasadena as a possible site. “It means that minorities are good enough to pay dues but not to be neighbors,” said Katherine Luna, a mortgage banker who spoke for the protesters.

Ralph acknowledged that a board committee was looking for office space in a central location. “There are certain kinds of things that you look for in a new location, such as accessibility,” Ralph said.

He said that he was not familiar with Ackerman’s memorandum. “We don’t rule out whatever might be an appropriate site,” he said. “The majority of our members are very happy with the present site.”

Critics have also raised questions about the independence of an investigation by Carlberg, who is chamber counsel. Demonstrators produced a copy of the agenda for a chamber staff meeting Sept. 21, which included an item described as “Discussion on Attorney Interviews.”

“It seems to suggest that they got together ahead of time to talk about what they would say to the investigator,” one demonstrator said.