L.A. Council OKs Budget With Biggest Police Buildup Since ’73

The Los Angeles City Council, breaking from the leadership of Mayor Tom Bradley, gave preliminary approval Wednesday to a $2.46-billion budget that is highlighted by the largest increase in police strength since 1973.

The proposed spending plan for 1987-88--still subject to the mayor’s line-item veto, which is in turn subject to possible council override--was heralded by its chief architect, Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, as the council’s boldest budgetary action since Proposition 13 forced across-the-board cuts in 1979.

The council’s vote Wednesday came as an anticlimax to a session Monday at which most major budget questions were resolved. On the same day, Bradley, whose own “hold-the-line” budget proposal last month contained no increase in officers, announced that he would support the council’s police plan, approved by 14-0 vote, to add 250 police officers. This would hike the total sworn police strength from 7,100 to 7,350--the largest increase since 1973-74, officials said.

Where the mayor recommended cuts in such basics as street resurfacing, the council’s plan calls for increases. Bradley prevailed, however, in retaining the Board of Public Works, which Yaroslavsky wanted eliminated.

On Wednesday, after the third day of tedious, often rancorous hearings, Yaroslavsky said: “We have stretched the budget farther than it’s been stretched before. . . . I’m very satisfied. I’m also very tired.”

As chairman of the council’s finance committee, Yaroslavsky was largely responsible for developing the alternative budget and piloting it through the council hearings. The councilman--an unannounced challenger for Bradley’s job in 1989--attributed the council’s aggressive tack to more than “just . . . somebody’s alleged political aspirations.”

Rather, it reflected “the council’s desire to respond to what we hear from our constituents. We hear what people say they want,” he said. “We don’t have to be a rubber stamp for the chief executive of the city.”

In an Aggressive Mood

Even though police strength has long been the dominant issue in budget debates, the council’s actions this time were more aggressive than in years past. The council and mayor added 100 officers to the force in each of the last two years, taking the authorized strength from 6,900 to its current level of 7,100.

The budget process also featured perhaps shrewd, perhaps lucky political maneuvering by Councilman Robert Farrell, who proclaimed victory in his effort to put more police on the crime-plagued streets of South-Central Los Angeles. Farrell is facing sharp criticism from many black groups for authoring the controversial South-Central police tax initiative on the June 2 ballot. He has since abandoned that effort because of the budgeted police increase.

Reacting to critics who said his initiative was divisive and could further “ghetto-ize” the community, Farrell characterized the increase of 250 officers as a triumph of his bold strategy. The police tax initiative, he said Wednesday, helped force the police strength issue to the fore in council debates.

Farrell Credited

Yaroslavsky said the 250-officer increase “wouldn’t have been that high” if not for Farrell, who was also a member of the finance committee. “I would have settled for 200. But he made a persuasive case.”

Yaroslavsky attributed the council’s less strident actions in previous years to an “unwritten rule” not to stray far from Bradley’s budget priorities. “He was running for governor. . . . Nobody wanted to embarrass him,” the councilman said.

In all, the council’s proposed budget represented about $20 million worth of changes from the mayor’s proposal. Most of that involves increases in police strength, police overtime and funds for 206 new replacement patrol cars and three helicopters. Of the $20 million, about half is in increased revenue and half represents decreases in various city departments.

Unlike the mayor’s proposal, the council’s budget includes an increase in city construction fees from $200 per dwelling to $500. It also includes $3 million through a federal program in which cash seized in drug arrests is rerouted to arresting agencies, and a $3-million increase in projected sales tax revenue.

In a press release Monday, Bradley questioned the sales tax revenue projections of Yaroslavsky’s finance committee. “If he’s skeptical, he ought to veto it, “ Yaroslavsky challenged. “But he’s apparently not skeptical enough to veto it.”