Santa Ana Will Lease Police Patrol Copters

With little fanfare, the Santa Ana City Council has approved the Police Department’s request to provide helicopter patrols in neighborhoods with rampant drug trafficking and gang activity.

The city will not purchase its own police helicopter. Instead, it will lease patrol time from another law enforcement agency, most likely either the Costa Mesa Police Department or the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, Police Chief Clyde Cronkhite said.

The council Monday night appropriated $100,000 in community development block grant funds for helicopter services in fiscal year 1988-89, which begins July 1.

In addition to the Sheriff’s Department and Costa Mesa, only Anaheim, Newport Beach and Huntington Beach in Orange County have police helicopters. Santa Ana has considered purchasing or sharing one with another city in the past, but former Police Chief Raymond C. Davis and the council majority opposed the idea, most recently in September, 1986.

Budget Increase

This year, however, the council is shaping a budget that is largely aimed at reducing crime and bolstering residents’ confidence in their own safety. While most city departments will be forced to cut expenditures, Cronkhite is asking for, and will probably receive, about $750,000 more than was available this year to run the Police Department.

Mayor Dan Young said Cronkhite’s idea to lease helicopter time rather than to spend $2 million to $3 million to buy new aircraft made the idea more palatable.

“It’s always been a function of the trade-off between the cost of those helicopters and added (ground) patrol,” said Young, who is running for mayor against Councilman John Acosta in the city’s first popular election for that post next fall. “This is a very creative approach to an issue that has been hotly debated in the past. By utilizing this technique, we don’t have to sacrifice any of our patrol time . . . and yet we get a crime-fighting tool.”

Councilman Dan Griset, who in 1986 said the helicopter issue was a question of “do we need more ground troops or do we need an air force?” agreed with Young that leasing a helicopter on an hourly basis was much more acceptable than buying one.

“It’s a limited expenditure relative to owning and operating them,” said Griset, who was mayor when the issue came up the last time.

Cronkhite said that his years with the Los Angeles Police Department, which has 18 helicopters and in which he attained the rank of deputy chief, taught him the value of the machines.

Top of the Wish List

“I saw how they really are an extension of the eyes and ears of the officers on the ground,” Cronkhite said. “When we talk about . . . cities that show quick response time, the first unit to arrive is often the helicopter. Once they zero in on suspects, there is not much chance of them getting away.”

Cronkhite also said that a helicopter was one of the items at the top of his officers’ wish list when he surveyed them about the department’s needs shortly after becoming chief last fall.

The hours and days when the helicopters would patrol over Santa Ana remain to be determined, Cronkhite said. They will be used primarily to combat drug trafficking and gang activity, two problems that residents said they were extremely concerned about in informal surveys that Cronkhite conducted.

Costa Mesa has already submitted a bid for helicopter services, but Cronkhite said he could not disclose any details until the Sheriff’s Department submits its bid. The helicopters will be flown by pilots from their home departments but a Santa Ana patrol officer will be aboard.

Cronkhite said he hopes to award the contract by July 1.