California Board of State and Community Corrections awards a major grant to the City of Pasadena (Photos – KPAS, bscc.ca,gov).
“A breakthrough program,” Pasadena mayor Terry Tornek said in Monday night’s meeting of the Pasadena City Council.
By Garrett Rowlan
He was referring to the Pasadena’s police department granted funds related to Proposition 47, which was passed in California in November, 2014. The only police department in California awarded this grant, visitors to the council meeting were showed how the Pasadena Police Department could partner with outside agencies to help people convicted of a crime. That is, those individuals where drug issues or a mental health disorder were contributing factors to the crime. They could have a felony conviction reduced to a misdemeanor. In the process, they could receive drug and mental health issues to combat those two maladies and lead the individual to a place where criminal activity is not an option.
Those 30 or so people who attended Monday’s meeting were shown how the Pasadena Police department intends to get formerly incarcerated individuals back on track through counseling, treatment, and job opportunities. It is the hope that the implementation of this bill could further reduce the percentage of recidivism—already below the state average—of Pasadena residents convicted of a felony.
California Voter Participation Act
Council members seemed ebullient—at least, to grade on the curve of city council meetings—but a later topic on the agenda showed the thorny issues of public policy, this in regard to Pasadena’s position on the California Voter Participation Act. Whether Pasadena, as a charter city, is exempt from the draconian law attempting to increase public turnout at the polls, the issue of elections and when to hold them opens a Pandora’s Box of issues. These include choices between a two-step process (primary/runoff) versus a simple plurality, or when ballot overload turns overloaded voters into ballot-punching robots, and always the issues of finance, what solution is the most cost-effective. “It’s an endless process,” Tornek concluded.
Other issues
Other issues included the establishing of bike lanes , the effect of wifi signals on public health, and the city spending money on fireworks when homelessness is a dire problem in Pasadena. Present too was poet Gerda Govine, and “Jazz is not enough,” was the name of her poem, and considering the complexity of issues before the council, one could only say amen.
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