$2-Million Plan to Bolster Police to Go to Voters

Keeping its pledge to battle drug-related crime, the City Council will ask voters to approve a special tax this summer to raise about $2 million a year for the city’s hard-pressed police force.

The money would be used to fund a proposal by Police Chief Richard M. Tefank calling for 20 new officers, 13 civilians and a second helicopter for seven-day-a-week aerial patrols.

At its Monday meeting, the council voted unanimously to spend up to $42,000 on consultants to prepare details of the public safety tax for a July 14 special election.

“I’m excited we have the opportunity to present the proposal to the people in the community,” Tefank said. “I haven’t heard anybody say we don’t need it. All the discussion has been over how to pay for it.”

If the special tax receives the necessary two-thirds voter approval, it would mean roughly an 18% increase in the $13.3 million the Police Department is budgeted to receive next year. After a first-year price tag of $2.4 million, Tefank said, the program would cost residents about $2 million a year.

Unlike an assessment district, the tax would levy a fee on property parcels and not on benefits, such as lighting or landscaping. City officials said they do not have enough information to even guess at the costs businesses and residences would face under the tax.

No time limit has yet been determined for how long the tax would remain in effect, but officials said they would probably ask for a perennial plan that would remain valid for several years before it requires voter approval again.

“If we’re ever going to get a handle on our social crisis in the city, this is probably the only way we’re going to do it,” Mayor G. Stanton Selby said. “I fully support it.”

Councilwoman Donna Smith, a persistent advocate of police funding, also was pleased by the council’s action.

“It starts the ball rolling,” Smith said. “If we didn’t start it now, it would almost be like saying we didn’t care what the people wanted.”

The decision to seek a public safety tax comes after years of discussion and several aborted attempts to fund increased police services in this fiscally pinched city.

A similar move to boost manpower fizzled last July when the council failed to reach agreement on a proposed $3.5-million assessment district that would have funded Tefank’s program, as well as expanded fire and communication services.

At the time, dissenting council members contended that voters would not support the assessment district just one month after the council had increased the local utility tax from 7% to 11% to help balance the city’s $37.9-million budget.

But as residents and council members became increasingly frustrated by chronic drug activity in their neighborhoods, pressure began to mount on the city to take action. With 144 sworn officers in a city of 113,000, the Pomona Police Department falls about 59 officers short of the national average for cities its size.

After several impassioned pleas by Smith to crack down on drug dealing, the council voted last September to increase helicopter patrols from two to four nights a week.

A method of financing had not been determined, however, and the next week council members reversed their votes.

Then, in December, the council voted to spend $150,000 of one-time reserve funds on increased police service. Tefank told the council he would use the money to expand aerial patrols from two to five nights a week, the level at which the program operated before it was cut during budget sessions last May.

Finally, hoping to avoid such piecemeal efforts, the council in January voted to support Tefank’s proposal for beefing up the police force with an additional 33 positions and a second helicopter.

Again, the council stopped short of funding the increase, but pledged that the call for more police service was serious and some method of financing would be found.

“It’s the only alternative,” Councilman E. J. (Jay) Gaulding said after the council’s decision on Monday to proceed with the special tax. “Win, lose or draw, I think we have to do it.”