Naples Offers Extra Tax for More Security : Police: Some residents of the exclusive community are willing to finance Long Beach police to patrol their area. Critics say the residents seek an “elite society” apart from the rest of the city.

In the exclusive Naples community, island residents can look out their picture windows and see gondolas gliding past their waterfront homes. On their streets, however, they want to see more city police--even if that means paying for their own.

Some Naples residents, concerned that the Long Beach Police Department is understaffed and often slow to respond, are considering taxing themselves an extra $20 to $40 a month to ensure that a city police officer will be assigned 24 hours a day to the exclusive neighborhood, although it has one of the lower crime rates in the city.

The Naples Improvement Assn.’s 15-member board of directors voted unanimously in October to pursue the plan, association President Don Brannon said. Councilwoman Jan Hall, who represents the community of about 1,800 homes on the southeast edge of the city, said she has discussed the issue with the police chief, city attorney and financial management director.

Hall said the proposal “should not be viewed as a rich-man/poor-man issue.”

“All communities should be able to improve their area. We should not be horrified that others can,” Hall said. “We want more protection and we’re willing to pay for it.”

But the Naples plan is drawing criticism on the City Council and from officials of other organizations.

Councilman Clarence Smith, who represents a crime-ridden inner-city area, said the proposal would “set up an elite society.”

“What kind of Long Beach do we have?” Smith asked. “One part of Long Beach that will continue to be deprived and one part of Long Beach that will have everything? We’re creating different types of people . . . That’s not the way our system is supposed to be.”

Sid Solomon, immediate past president of Long Beach Area Citizens Involved, said: “All they’re going to do is drive the criminals to the next area. These little guarded communities that have gates--is that a good concept? It’s a local, provincial, block solution and I don’t go for that at all.”

Leaders of the Naples association, which represents about 450 households, have considered a variety of plans, including hiring security guards who would not have full police powers, Brannon said. But they favor hiring police officers, who would be assigned exclusively to patrol Naples, he said.

Under such a plan, Naples residents would be asked to approve an assessment district that would add an average of $360 or $480 to residents’ property taxes each year, according to Hall. The exact figure has not yet been determined, according to city and police officials. Hall estimated that the service might cost each homeowner an additional $30 or $40 a month, although Brannon said proponents would prefer an increase of $20 to $30 per month. An assessment district also would require City Council approval, Hall said.

The officers would be added to the Long Beach Police Department, but would be assigned to patrols in Naples. Brannon estimated that because of vacations and other days off, seven officers would be needed to provide 24-hour patrols.

Hall and Naples leaders said they would like a speedy response to police calls, although they acknowledge that many incidents are minor.

“It’s a wonderful little community,” Brannon said. “Nobody has shot anybody in the gondolas.”

Hall added: “When somebody breaks into your house and steals your things, that’s important to you. But that’s not a priority one call. We don’t like the world that is starting to come into our neighborhoods, but we’ll admit our crimes are not as important as others.”

Bob Luskin, president-elect of the Naples Improvement Assn., said: “We have a lot of minor incidents. Nothing big. Naples is such an incredibly low-crime area and the Police Department is really understaffed.”

In the Long Beach Police Department, an average of 60 officers have been on injury leaves, and at least 20 other positions have not been filled, according to department reports.

Although crime is up throughout the city, Naples has not experienced a significant increase in crime, said Ed Hatzenbuhler, chief of staff for Long Beach police.

Hatzenbuhler said his department is reviewing the costs and details of implementing the Naples proposal. Some issues, such as when a Naples officer would be called on to respond to emergencies elsewhere, remain to be worked out, he said.

Hatzenbuhler would not express an opinion about the plan. “We will support any policy direction we get from the council,” he said.

By taxing Naples residents, extra officers would be added to the force, Hall noted. “We’re not stealing from anyone,” she said. The councilwoman also pointed out that the City Council has been considering asking all city voters to approve a tax that would add about 160 officers to the force.

Brannon, the association’s president, said: “I feel that we are actually freeing up a police officer. That will be for the betterment of the (entire) city. So, ethically, I think we are doing good for the city and the other people.”

Others disagree, including Frank Berry, president of the Long Beach chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. “It seems to me that the people in Long Beach need to look at Long Beach as a whole and provide (a good) quality of life to all residents, and not just to those who live in an exclusive area and feel threatened by the rest,” Berry said.

In Naples, the concept of paying for exclusive patrols was favored by 58 of 60 people who attended a neighborhood meeting last month, Brannon said.

But some residents have said they are opposed.

Naples resident Jim Serles, the city’s Planning Commission chairman, for example, said he would like to see private security guards, because hiring a city police officer would create too many problems and is “unrealistic.”

Resident Jane Davis, who has lived in her home since 1950, said she feels safe and believes the added security would be unnecessary.

But another resident, who asked not to be identified, said he would welcome added patrols. “There are more street people. I don’t have anything against street people, but they don’t need to sleep behind my home,” he said. “That’s not the way to live.”

In South Los Angeles, voters defeated a controversial measure in June, 1987, that would have added $148 a year to the average property tax bill and another 300 police officers to four police department divisions--Newton, Southwest, Southeast and 77th Street.

Opponents of Proposition 7 argued that the proposal would have placed an unfair burden on those least able to afford it. By the time the measure went before the voters, even its original proponent, Los Angeles City Councilman Robert Farrell, changed his position and opposed it.

Los Angeles police Cmdr. William Booth said he knew of no neighborhood in the county whose residents pay extra for their own police officer. Some of the more exclusive areas, such as Bel Air Estates, have security patrols, but by private companies, Booth said.