Sierra Madre PD Committed to Serve Community
By admin
Published: Thursday, August 27th, 2009
Despite the many allegations against Sierra Madre’s police department management and specific officers, city officials and police staff remain firm on their commitment to serving their residents.
Currently, the city faces three lawsuits and one claim filed by residents for specific behavioral incidents with police officers, the Pasadena Star News reports. Another four lawsuits and two legal claims have been filed by the police officers union in response to actions taken by Chief of Police Marilyn Diaz.
“When I was hired, I was given a specific mission and that was to accomplish three things,” Diaz said. “I was to ensure accountability, professionalize development through training and integrate the department more closely with the community.”
It was these directives that prompted Diaz to begin team building workshops, for which she said feedback was “overwhelmingly positive.”
“I recall many members of the department praising the process,” she said.
Other procedures involved audio recordings of conversations, and locker room searches, among others.
According to John Ellins, president of the Sierra Madre Police Officers Association, the lawsuits are issues between administration and the association, a regular thing that occurs in law enforcement.
“We have some issues to address with management,” he said. “A lot of these issues, we would love to resolve out of court.”
Currently, the police management and the police officers’ association is working to foster better communication to resolve issues at the table instead of in the courtroom, Diaz said.
“One of the important points overlooked in the recent articles about litigation is that we have a growing number of employees … who are dedicated, compassionate and have achieved remarkable accomplishments,” she said. “I am proud of them and all the members of the department.”
Officials from the city had similarly positive things to say.
“Our police officers are number one,” said City Clerk Nancy Shollenberger. “The litigation is strictly administrative, it’s all inside. The police offers love the community, and we love them.”
Shollenberger also said that the litigation had little chance of affecting whether or not the city decides to contract out services.
“I think the contract services may be based on price only,” she said.
“But I don’t think they’re going to come out better doing that so I doubt it will happen.”
The city recently requested inquiries to Arcadia, Pasadena, and the County of Los Angeles in regard to contracting out certain public safety services to cut costs.
Diaz said that in order to decide on whether to contract out services, more information must be gathered for residents to decide what level of service the community wants.
“To replicate a 24-hour police department with walk-in service and police responses for quality of life calls such as barking dogs, dangerous animals, may be cost prohibitive,” she said. “The only way to reduce the cost of policing services is to reduce the level of service currently provided.”
According to Diaz, the salaries of police departments and sheriffs neighboring Sierra Madre are too high to duplicate the same staff and services currently provided.
“I think Sierra Madre is a unique city that takes a long time to adjust to,” Ellins said. “We’ve been here for over one hundred years and we know how to provide professional services, whereas if another agency came in it would be more difficult and may not be able to adjust or provide what Sierra Madreans deserves.”
Ellins expressed a deep appreciation to the citizens of Sierra Madre on behalf of the police officers association for supporting them in their raise.
“As an association, police work is always changing or adjusting to budget cuts and Sierra Madre is not immune – we’re more than willing to change,” Ellins said. “Since day one we’ve looked to always better ourselves, to better our department and make our city safer.”
By Sameea Kamal
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