Task Force of Civic Leaders to Explore LAPD Expansion

Los Angeles city officials, rebuffed twice by voters in their efforts to expand the Police Department, announced Friday the formation of a task force of business, finance and labor leaders to explore ways to put additional officers on the street.

The committee includes retired City Administrative Officer C. Erwin Piper, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, a former congresswoman and county supervisor, and William Robertson, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO.

Police Commissioner Bert Boeckmann, a San Fernando Valley businessman, also was named to the 18-member group.

In announcing the committee, Mayor Tom Bradley and five City Council members told a City Hall news conference that the panel will review the city’s finances and recommend ways to beef up the department’s 7,000-officer force.

Last June, voters soundly defeated a ballot measure that would have raised property taxes to pay for hiring 1,000 officers over the next five years. Four years ago, a similar measure to pay for 1,400 new officers also was rejected.

Bradley, who had pushed hard for both plans, conceded Friday that city officials are still smarting from those defeats and have embraced the committee approach as a means to gain credibility with voters.

“There’s always a question of credibility when elected officials, at whatever level, propose some new revenue measure,” he said. “If that action is based on independent evaluation by nonpartisans who are well-respected, I think it’s a lot easier for the public to believe what the elected officials are saying.”

The mayor was joined by council members Hal Bernson, David Cunningham, Pat Russell, Michael Woo and Zev Yaroslavsky.

Bradley said there is not enough available money in the city coffers to add more than a token number of officers. And the prospects of federal budget cuts--including the possible loss of $52 million in federal revenue-sharing funds--would further drain city resources, the mayor said.

But Bradley, along with the council members, insisted that the committee will not be wedded to any tax proposal.

Bernson, who chairs the council’s Police, Fire and Safety Committee, said: “I think we should let them make their own decisions and their own recommendations.”

Bernson stressed that the committee will focus on city finances and not Police Department practices. But Yaroslavsky, who chairs the council’s Finance and Revenue Committee, said he hopes the new panel also will explore other avenues such as increasing the use of one-officer patrol cars to cut costs.

Police Chief Daryl F. Gates was out of town Friday, but his chief spokesman, Cmdr. William Booth, reacted favorably to the news, lauding the committee’s goal of searching for revenue sources that could help expand the department.

“They seem to be the kind of prominent citizens that, if there are any resources in the city to be found, they can find them,” Booth said.

David Baca, vice president of the Police Protective League, said his group also supports the committee idea and remains confident that its members will conclude that the department is severely understaffed.

The committee is expected to start work next month and is targeted to complete its work by late December, in time to send their recommendations to the mayor and City Council before budget deliberations begin.

Other members of the committee include Everett Ascher, president of Emil Ascher Inc.; Larry Calemine, chief executive officer of Urban Realty Co. Inc.; Albert A. Dorskind, vice president, MCA Inc.; Barbara Fouche-Roseboro, president, Fouche, Roseboro Corp.; accountant Harvey A. Goldstein, and Raymond Johnson Jr., an attorney and president of the local chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

Also named were businessmen Kenneth Ho Min Kim and Bruce Schwaegler; Art Pfefferman, president, Donut Inn; attorney Cynthia Maduro Ryan; Robert D. Selleck, senior vice president, Coldwell Banker; Celia Gonzales Torres, vice president, Torres Enterprises, and public relations executives Barbara Trister and Alan B. Wayne.