Prop. 1 Pits Concern Over Crime Against Dislike of Tax Hikes

A week from today, Los Angeles voters will balance a traditional hostility to tax increases against concern over crime when they decide if they want to add 1,000 officers to the Police Department by boosting their property taxes.

The proposal, Proposition 1 on next Tuesday’s city ballot, has taken on added significance since last Friday, when a City Council proposal to add 100 officers to the department by shifting general revenues died. The department now has an authorized strength of 7,000 uniformed officers.

Mayor Tom Bradley, who supports the property tax increase, vetoed the 100-officer plan, which had been approved by the council. He said enlargement of the Police Department must be supported by more tax revenue.

Different Approach

The council members, a majority of whom also back the property tax increase, took a different approach, insisting that there would be enough money in next year’s budget to support the increase.

With the mayor the winner in that battle, Proposition 1 remains the last hope of those who insist that the department is too small to meet the crime problems of a city in which residents, in public opinion polls, have expressed concern about crime.

Those concerns were revealed in a Times Poll in March that found that crime was by far the greatest concern of city voters. The poll also contained bad news for Bradley and a coalition of prominent business and political leaders backing Proposition 1. Only 53% favored Proposition 1, far short of the 66% needed for passage. Thirteen percent were undecided. Voters overwhelmingly rejected a similar tax in 1981.

Still, Bradley said, “We think we have a chance now.”

Proposition 1 proposes a new tax, which backers say would average $58 a year for a typical homeowner, to pay for about 200 additional officers a year for five years.

Intense Debate

The vote will culminate months of intense political debate, both among City Council members and during the recent mayoral campaign, over how best to boost the strength of the department.

Despite efforts to raise about $250,000 and target likely voters with computerized mail, leaders of the campaign for passage of Proposition 1 concede that they face major obstacles. One is an expected low turnout in the election.

A lackluster runoff campaign for city controller tops the ballot, and fewer than 20% of the city’s eligible voters are expected to go to the polls. Proposition 1 supporters said they intend to counter the possible low vote with a carefully focused mail campaign to win over likely voters, doing it quietly by mail to avoid attracting a strong response from tax increase opponents.

“Strategically . . . we didn’t want people knowing what we were going to do or how we were going to do it,” said George Aliano, president of the Police Protective League, the city police officers’ union, which pledged $15,000 to the campaign.

A second obstacle is an emotional political issue, pitting political leaders from the inner city against those of the San Fernando Valley.

That is the issue of how Los Angeles Police Department officers should be deployed in various areas. It came to a head last year when inner-city groups claimed that they were not getting their fair share of officers and demanded more police to combat increasing problems with violent crime and drugs.

Frustrated by slow progress on revising the deployment policy, which is being studied by the city Police Commission, two influential inner-city community groups, the Eastside’s United Neighborhood Organization and the church-based South-Central Organizing Committee, are withholding endorsements of the measure.

Frances James, a spokeswoman for the South-Central Organizing Committee, which claims 42,000 member families, said: “We recognize the need for an increase in officers. . . . South-Central Los Angeles residents are experts on crime.” She said her group is not backing Proposition 1 because members are not convinced that additional officers “will be deployed equitably, fairly and in the most effective manner.”

Could Be Significant

Coolness toward the measure from community leaders in the South-Central area could prove significant. The strongest support for the 1981 police tax proposal came from Central and South-Central Los Angeles. The Times Poll in March found, however, that although residents in South Los Angeles were more concerned about crime than were residents of the Westside and the San Fernando Valley, they were not as supportive of Proposition 1.

The deployment issue is also a thorny problem in the Valley, where suburban residents historically have complained that they pay more in property taxes but get less in service than do residents in urban areas. Last year, Valley residents protested when they lost nine officers to a South-Central Los Angeles crime-fighting task force.

“There’s no guarantee we’ll get our fair share,” said Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn., which opposes Proposition 1. “The whole deployment formula has to be worked out first. Then we’ll know what we are getting and we can vote whether or not we want to pay for it,” said Close, also a spokesman for a coalition of several East Valley homeowner groups.

Bradley and other Proposition 1 backers--including Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, most members of the City Council, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angeles Police Protective League--are saying that with additional officers, all areas of the city will benefit, regardless of what adjustments are made in the deployment formula.

More for All Areas

“Whatever the formula for deployment, this 1,000 extra officers is going to mean more police for every community,” Bradley said.

Gates said that the only practical way to ensure that any area of the city gets more police is to expand the force. “Unless there are additional officers, they are not going to get additional officers,” the chief told reporters last week.

Because of increases in violent crime, more calls to police and the city’s growing population, supporters of the measure contend that more officers are needed.

They note that the force has been reduced by 600 officers in the last 10 years. And they argue that, while Los Angeles has roughly one officer for every 500 residents, the nation’s other largest cities--New York, Chicago, Detroit, Washington--have substantially higher ratios. Washington, for example, has about one officer for every 165 residents.

For the price of a monthly movie, they argue, residents would be doing something substantial to address a complaint that Los Angeles police are slow to respond.

Although the ballot measure does not spell out where officers will be assigned, police officials say that 71% of the new officers will be patrol officers. This concentration on patrol would boost the Police Department’s field strength by about 25%, according to the officials. The department says the officers would be assigned to the city’s 18 police stations on the basis of workload.

Issue Is How to Pay

Opponents of the measure, who include the Los Angeles Taxpayers Assn., and City Councilmen Ernani Bernardi and John Ferraro, say the issue is not so much whether additional officers are needed but how best to pay for them.

Although they are mounting no formal, organized campaign to get their message across, the Proposition 1 critics contend that the city has the money to pay for additional officers without a new tax.

“If public protection is the No. 1 priority, then it should be in there competing with all the other programs,” said Paul Shay, executive vice president of the Taxpayers Assn., whose membership includes many large business firms. “Nothing as important as police should be dealt with in an off-budget (special tax) way.”

Bernardi, a frequent critic of City Hall spending decisions, said: “The ugliest thing is we (elected officials) are not facing our responsibility. We’re passing the buck to the public.”

More One-Officer Cars

Bernardi said that 80% of the city’s patrol cars are two-officer cars and that more efficient use of existing officers could be made by deploying more one-officer cars, as the Sheriff’s Department does. He also noted that recent court rulings are expected to force the city to begin paying officers for overtime, rather than giving them compensatory time off. That change would add the equivalent of 400 to 600 new officers and cost $27 million to $40 million a year, Bernardi claimed.

“Where is that money?” he asked. “The first thing we need to do is get our financial house in order. . . . Another 1,000 officers will just add to the problem.”

Police officials acknowledge that the rulings probably will force them to pay millions of dollars in additional overtime, but they say Bernardi’s estimates appear too high.

Bernardi also noted that there is conflicting research on whether additional patrol officers lead to a reduction in crime.

Professor’s View

In a recent article in The Times, Michael Gottfredson, a professor of criminal justice at Claremont Graduate School, wrote that there is evidence that huge increases in police for brief periods in small areas--presumably like that in the Coliseum area during the Olympic Games--can appreciably affect crime levels.

Gottfredson cited a study by the Police Foundation in Washington that showed, however, that quicker response times and more visible patrols seem to have little effect on crime problems when more officers are added to cover a large area.

Gottfredson said, however, that those changes can be important anyway because they reduce “the fear of crime” among citizens.

Proponents say that the proposed tax plan, which calls for owners of larger property parcels and buildings to pay more than homeowners, is fairer than the 1981 police tax proposal, which would have imposed a flat tax on all property owners.

Proposition 1 supporters insist that budget cutbacks in recent years have left little room for hiring additional officers. They point out that recreation centers and libraries are operating about half-time, that custodians have been cut 50% in many areas and that the tree-trimming schedule is backlogged.

Bradley says police have always enjoyed top priority, receiving 44% to 49% of the locally controllable budget each year. “To suggest that we can squeeze out another 1,000 officers is ludicrous,” the mayor said. “It can’t be done.”

Ammunition for Critics

Critics of Proposition 1 charge that the actual cost of its tax is being misrepresented.

City officials behind the measure estimate that the average homeowner would face a graduated special tax--to a maximum of $58 a year six years after the ordinance became law--if all 1,000 officers are hired.

When pressed, the officials acknowledged that the ordinance allows the $58-a-year tax to increase to compensate for inflation and population increases. City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie said the actual sixth-year tax for the average homeowner could be more than $70.

Costs Will Rise

Comrie said that an inflation adjustment is necessary because costs of keeping the additional officers will rise, perhaps beyond the amount the new tax would be able to raise.

Although it has been called “The 1,000 Plan,” Proposition 1 actually calls for “up to” 1,000 additional officers. Although the intent is to hire all of the officers, officials acknowledge that there is no guarantee that the city will do so.

Assistant Police Chief Barry Wade said Gates plans to evaluate the department’s needs after each 200-officer increment is added. “We firmly believe that if we can do the job with 600 or 700 (more) officers, that’s all we’re going to hire,” Wade said.

There is also a chance that, faced with unforeseen financial hard times, city officials could reduce the overall size of the police force, even if the measure passes. Unlike the defeated 1981 police tax measure, this ordinance does not require city officials to use general tax funds to maintain the force’s current size.

PAYING FOR PROPOSITION 1

If approved by a two-thirds vote on June 4, Proposition 1 would impose a special tax on property owners to allow the City of Los Angeles to hire up to 1,000 more police officers at the rate of up to 200 per year.

EFFECT ON THE TAXPAYERS The tax rate on each property would increase in steps over five years to what the ordinance calls a maximum of 32 cents per 100 square feet of land area and $2.36 per 100 square feet of improvements, such as buildings. The beginning rate and precise yearly increases in the rate would be set each year by the City Council. Even after the fifth year, however, the so-called maximum could be adjusted upward annually to compensate for cost-of-living and city population increases.

Under an ordinance now pending before the City Council, landlords could pass on 50% of the tax costs to renters. That would amount to about $10 per year for an average size apartment, according to city estimates.

Here are some examples of the annual tax property owners would pay five years from now, not counting adjustments for inflation:

SINGLE-FAMILY HOMEOWNERS Small (800 sq. ft. house on 4,000 sq. ft. lot) $32

Average (1,500 sq. ft. house on 7,000 sq. ft. lot) $58

Large (3,000 sq. ft. house on 12,000 sq. ft. lot) $110

(BLOCK) APARTMENT BUILDING OWNERS Average (4,300 sq. ft. building on 8,400 sq. ft. lot) $128

(BLOCK) COMMERCIAL PROPERTY OWNERS Average (8,400 sq. ft. building on 13,300 sq. ft. lot) $240

Large high-rise (1 million sq. ft. building on 64,000 sq. ft. lot) $23,840

HOW THE MONEY WOULD BE SPENT In 1985 dollars, the maximum tax would raise about $56 million. If the full 1,000 officers were hired, it would increase the Police Department’s force in the field by about 25% citywide. No officers above the rank of lieutenant could be paid for with the special tax funds. Part of the money would pay for clerical help, vehicles and other equipment.

Depending on their workload, each of the city’s 18 police stations would get between 32 and 70 additional officers. The busiest station is Rampart in the Central area, the slowest is Harbor in San Pedro, department officials say.

Here’s how the Police Department says it would use the money:

710 officers in patrol or traffic functions

110 sergeants

180 detectives

261 civilian support workers

190 police vehicles