Inglewood Gives Voters Say in Police Tax Plan

After months of meetings and discussion, the Inglewood City Council has decided to let voters have a say on a proposed property tax to pay for 20 new police officers.

Council members unanimously agreed to put an advisory measure on the November ballot after hearing mixed and sometimes emotional comments from residents Tuesday. The council will not be bound by the outcome, however.

Mixed Response From Residents

Noting the mixed response the council has received from residents, Mayor Edward Vincent said: “To get a much more definite response from residents of this city, we should put it on the ballot and have the people vote on it.”

The proposal calls for a parcel tax of $45 a year for a single-family home. Owners of apartment units would be charged on a sliding scale beginning at $53 per unit, and commercial properties would be assessed according to street frontage. The $1.4 million a year expected from the tax would pay for a 20-officer crime-suppression team to fight gang and drug activity, which has kept the city’s violent-crime rate high despite an overall drop in crime.

The exact wording of the ballot measure will be decided at the council meeting Aug. 16.

If voters endorse the measure in November and the council in turn approves the tax, the earliest the officers could be hired would be July, 1989. If the council had adopted the assessment district proposal at Tuesday’s meeting, the funds would have been included in the current budget, and the 20 officers could have been hired immediately, Assistant City Manager Norman Cravens said.

“The best way to protect you is to get the officers now,” Councilman Anthony Scardenzan told the 50 people who attended the meeting. In an interview afterward, Scardenzan, who has been pushing for the additional officers for more than a year, said he is worried that if Inglewood waits too long, “all the other cities will take all the good cops.”

The tax proposal, advanced in February by Scardenzan, was initially endorsed by the council and a task force of community leaders assembled by Mayor Edward Vincent. But at a June public hearing attended by 300 people, about 25 speakers voiced the first concerted opposition to the measure.

While all of the council members say they support the idea, Councilman Ervin (Tony) Thomas said they have not received a clear indication of how residents feel.

Councilman Daniel K. Tabor said that if voters approve the tax, “I assume we will.”

The dozen people who spoke at the meeting all favored more officers, but more than half argued that the funds should be raised some other way.

“The city should research other ways to get the money,” Inglewood resident Terry Coleman told the council. “The people cannot dig into their pockets every time you want to raise the taxes.”

In an interview, Thomas said the city had already sufficiently investigated other means of raising funds.

Herman Fae, who lives in the northeast section of the city, told the council he supports the plan.

“It costs me more than $45 if my daughter gets kidnapped. It costs me more that $45 if I get killed,” Fae said. “I don’t want my tombstone to say, ‘Here lies Herman Fae because he didn’t want to pay $45 a year.”

In opting for the advisory vote, the council rejected the idea of letting the residents decide the issue directly, which by law would require a two-thirds majority in favor. Thomas said the council rejected that idea because it is difficult to achieve such a majority.

Some critics argued that 20 officers are not needed because overall crime in the city has declined. Andrew Isaac, a former council member, said the city should consider hiring five officers from existing funds and then determine later whether more officers are needed.

A consulting firm hired by the city also recommended hiring five officers and 11 civilian employees, as well as streamlining administration to put more officers on the street.

But Vincent said later in the meeting that 20 officers are needed to stop an increase in gang and drug-related crimes.

Noting the opposition the council has received, Councilwoman Ann Wilk told the crowd: “It saddens us to think that the people don’t trust the decisions we make. Our families live here too, and we have to pay the same taxes. . . . “