Bratton and Baca Push Tax Increase

The sheriff and top police chiefs in Los Angeles County are asking voters Tuesday to agree to pay an additional $560 million in sales taxes each year to put 5,000 more police officers and sheriff’s deputies on the streets to fight crime.

At campaign events, Sheriff Lee Baca and LAPD Chief William J. Bratton boldly promise they will reduce crime by 50% if Measure A passes. Baca vows that he will halt the early release of prisoners from county jails.

This vote, the two top officers say, is the best chance for the city and county of Los Angeles to turn the corner on a long history of shortchanging law enforcement compared to major cities such as New York and Chicago, which put far more police officers on their streets.

The sales tax measure faces no organized opposition campaign, while Baca and Bratton have raised $2.5 million for their cause. But they face a high hurdle: Two-thirds of the county’s voters must approve Measure A, which will raise the sales tax to the highest level in the state.

“Measure A is a measured response to the issue of crime and public safety,” Bratton said. “It’s not a panacea, but it is the beginning of a significant reduction in the crime that still afflicts this city and this county.”

As the election draws near, Baca and Bratton are leading an all-out effort to win passage of the measure. The centerpiece of the campaign, a television ad that depicts a traumatized woman frantically dialing 911 as an intruder approaches, runs frequently, playing to fear of crime but never mentioning the tax increase.

The campaign, which also includes radio ads and fliers, is funded primarily by police unions, companies that do business with the city or county, and wealthy individuals, including A. Jerrold Perenchio, head of Spanish-language broadcaster Univision Communications, who donated $430,000.

The opposition is almost nonexistent by comparison, although objections come from the right and left sides of the political spectrum. County Supervisor Mike Antonovich and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. argue that the money for public safety is there, if politicians would stop diverting it.

Opponents are also concerned about the economic consequences of increasing the sales tax from 8.25% to 8.75% in Los Angeles County when neighboring counties have lower sales tax rates.

Activist Tom Hayden worries that the measure would allow police to snoop on citizens and spend too little on crime prevention.

The Sheriff’s Department and the LAPD -- the county’s largest law enforcement agencies -- would be the biggest beneficiaries, if the tax increase is approved, receiving roughly two-thirds of the money. But additional dollars also would flow to other cities and unincorporated areas based on population.

Baca is blunt when stating the need for Measure A.

“The whole concept of more cops on the street is to prevent crime in the first place,” he said. “You cannot prevent crime when the criminals never see a cop car.”

At every campaign stop, Baca asks: “How much is too much to pay for security, for safety and for peace of mind?”

He said the price tag for most middle-income residents would be about $6 a month. “That isn’t much more than a big Whopper, French fries and a milkshake.”

Baca and Bratton argue that Los Angeles has been under-policed compared to other major U.S. cities.

FBI statistics for last year show that the LAPD had 9,265 sworn officers for a city of 3.8 million residents, while Chicago had 13,553 police officers for 2.9 million residents.

Bratton estimates that the LAPD could hire 1,200 officers if the sales tax increase wins approval.

“More police can make a difference. It’s an investment; it’s not a cost,” Bratton said. “With these resources, we could reduce crime another 50% over and above the significant reductions that we have already experienced over the last 10 years.”

When pressed for details about how he would spend the extra money and how he might deploy officers, the normally talkative Bratton grows silent. He says he does not want to discuss his plans until Thursday, the second anniversary of when he became chief.

Bratton acknowledges that it will be difficult to find and train a large number of new officers. He said it would take up to three years to get all the new officers on board. In the meantime, the chief said, he intends to pay overtime to existing officers to expand the police presence on the streets of Los Angeles.

But in the case of the Sheriff’s Department, passage of Measure A would have a less dramatic impact than Baca portrays.

The sheriff says Measure A would generate enough money to hire about 1,600 deputies. But budget problems have cost the department 1,200 deputies in the past two years.

That means about three-quarters of the new deputies would just get the department back to the strength of two years ago. Only 400 new deputies would be an actual expansion.

The measure, however, could make a difference in the jails.

Because Baca could not maintain enough deputies in the jails, he was forced to release thousands of inmates before they served their full sentences. The capacity of the jail system fell from 22,000 to 17,000.

Measure A, which Baca conceived after his budget was cut, reserves 9% of the new tax revenue for the jail system. With that money, the sheriff said, he would reopen two jails and the number of inmates would increase to the old level.

Bratton said keeping criminals in jail is particularly important because “as fast as we’re locking them up, the sheriff is having to let them back out on the street.”

If the tax increase passes, Baca said, he -- like Bratton -- will pay overtime to current deputies until the new deputies are recruited and trained. “It’s going to take us a couple of years,” the sheriff said. “The climb-out period is going to be a longer period than the drop-down period.”

As in the nation as a whole, overall crime in Los Angeles has been on the decline since it peaked more than a decade ago. “The 1990s saw a tremendous drop in crime in virtually every part of the country,” said James Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University in Boston. “Some of it has to do with economics -- the economic improvement in the 1990s.”

Fox, an expert in crime statistics, said the decline in crime also was due to a combination of enforcement and prevention efforts. However, since the end of the 1990s, he said: “We got a little bit too complacent.” Crime has rebounded from its low point.

Fox said additional police officers could make a difference. “It’s not the sheer number of police; it’s how they are deployed,” he said.

But Fox said he couldn’t specify whether Bratton was correct that 1,200 additional LAPD officers could lead to a 50% reduction in crime in the city of Los Angeles. “It really depends if they are just sitting in cars responding to calls or if they are deployed at particular hot spots to prevent crime from occurring,” he said.

Deployment of officers using sophisticated computer tracking of emerging crime problems was a hallmark of Bratton’s tenure as chief of the New York City Police Department. He intends to use the same technology to battle gangs and drugs in Los Angeles.

Without fundraising, opponents of the measure have tried to make their case wherever they can: in the ballot pamphlet, in interviews and in e-mails.

Antonovich voted against putting Measure A on the ballot when Baca’s initiative drive failed to gain enough signatures.

“We don’t need more money,” Antonovich said. “We need to distribute the money we already have for public safety.”

He complains that his colleagues on the Board of Supervisors have been raiding public safety funds for other purposes. “A majority of the Board of Supervisors has not made public safety a No. 1 priority,” Antonovich said.

Jonathan Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., joined Antonovich in opposing the measure. He argues that police unions, which have supported the Measure A campaign financially, will “expect big raises and increased pension benefits when more money is available.”

Bratton said he could not guarantee that money from Measure A would not be used to enhance the pay, benefits or pensions of the new officers. But he said an oversight commission would annually review the expenditure of Measure A funds.

“Shame on the public if they let any of these politicians use this money for anything but additional police on the street,” Bratton said.

Hayden criticized Measure A’s authors for failing to mandate that 15% of the money be spent on anti-crime programs for young people and adults. The measure does include the option of spending new tax revenue on such programs but does not require it.

Both Bratton and Baca say they favor such programs. “This money will go to intervention and prevention, because we know that you cannot arrest your way out of a gang problem,” Baca said.

Hayden is also troubled by provisions in the measure that would “expand the role of local law enforcement to include intelligence gathering” and managing local anti-terrorism efforts.

Bratton is quick to reject such concerns, saying intelligence gathering is “absolutely essential” to protect the public in the post-Sept. 11 world.

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(Begin Text of Infobox)

Measure A

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If two-thirds of Los Angeles County voters approve, the measure will increase the sales tax from 8.25% to 8.75%, raising about $560 million each year. Here’s how that money would be spent:

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About 5,000 additional police officers and sheriff’s deputies would be hired, with every city and unincorporated area receiving some of these funds based on population.

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Up to 2% of the revenue could be spent to improve emergency communications.

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9% would fund county jails.

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6% would pay for prosecutors, public defenders and probation officers.

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Each law enforcement jurisdiction could spend up to 15% of its allocation on crime prevention programs.

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Money could also be used for anti-terrorism efforts, including intelligence gathering.

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Source: Yes on Measure A Campaign

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Los Angeles Times