Tax Proposal to Boost Police Nearing Vote in Long Beach

The path to the ballot box has proven a surprisingly long and tortuous one for what would seem to be an apple pie sort of issue in this crime-bruised city--a proposal to hire more police officers with money raised through a new property tax levy.

More than a year and half after the matter was first broached, the City Council seems poised to put the police tax on the ballot for a citywide vote this year. The levy--amounting to about $44 a year for the typical single family home--would raise $7.3 million annually to pay for another 75 police officers.

“We need more police. We need ‘em quick,” Councilman Warren Harwood said.

One would never know it by the pace of City Council deliberations. Over the past 18 months, the council has obtained a consultant’s report on police staffing, held hearings on the matter, debated it, sent it to committee and tabled it.

The issue has been complicated by bad publicity for the 677-member police force over a brutality incident, fractious labor negotiations with the police union and a report that concluded the department didn’t need more police as much as it needed to change its staffing practices.

A scenario of the police proposal, said Councilman Ray Grabinski, would amount to “a very strange mural. You’d see this issue which everybody supports--more cops--with mines (everywhere).”

Some of those mines remained on the horizon last week when a council committee voted to send the police proposal back to the full council for a vote--possibly this week--on whether to put the measure on the June ballot.

If the city’s contract dispute with the police union remains unsettled, it is even possible that the union could find itself in the ironic position of lobbying against the ballot measure.

“I don’t think there’s any way you can separate the contract dispute from the ballot item,” Mike Tracy, president of the police union, said last week. “We would never argue against more police officers,” Tracy continued, “but we would argue there are more efficient ways to get what they want” than imposing a new levy on property taxes. “There is another way that is more cost effective.”

That way is outlined in one of the union’s contract proposals, a “constant manning” clause that would have each member of the force work one extra shift a month at a cost of $1.8 million. Tracy said that would immediately put 21 more officers on the streets every day.

The union and the city are scheduled back in court Monday, when a Superior Court judge is expected to rule on whether the council was acting legally when it declared an impasse in the contract negotiations last November and voted to impose the city’s last contract offer without the union’s consent. Tracy said he was still hoping for a peaceful settlement, but reiterated that the union would not docilely accept any contract unilaterally imposed by management.

The city has used the contract talks to try to carry out several staffing recommendations contained in a report prepared last year by Ralph Andersen & Associates. The study concluded that if the department eliminated the practice of staffing all night-shift patrol cars with two officers and sent out more cars with just one officer, the force would be able to handle its workload with current staffing, or at the most, another 48 officers.

The union, condemning the report as the biased product of management’s wishes, has bitterly fought to retain two-officer cars and other personnel practices criticized in the Andersen study.

To what extent the city gets its way will influence the number of new officers needed for the force.

“One of the things that bothers me is that we have to move right now without having all the questions answered,” said Councilman Les Robbins, nevertheless adding that he supports putting the measure on the June ballot and expects the council to do that.

“I think there’s been political pressure by newspapers and people are up for reelection. I think it’s going to go without any question because of that.”

A soaring crime rate and chronic complaints of poor police service promise to make crime a leading campaign issue in this spring’s council elections. As political observers have noted, putting the police proposal on the ballot would allow incumbents to say they’re doing something about crime.

At the same time, there was also an effort to put the proposal off until the November elections to avoid placing the item on the same June ballot that will likely be asking voters to double the salaries of City Council members.

The levy, which must pass by a two-thirds public vote, would be paid primarily by residential property owners, since they make the greatest demands on police service. Depending on the size of their houses, single-family homeowners would pay anywhere from $34 to $64 a year.

Just how many additional officers the department needs is a matter of debate. Police officials, aiming for a ratio of two officers for every 1,000 residents, say they could use another 164 officers. Long Beach Area Citizens Involved, a vocal community group, has gone on record as supporting the 48 extra officers mentioned in the Andersen report.

And while members of the city’s Public Safety Advisory Commission say they will campaign vigorously for a ballot item for 75 officers, they have also supported the police chief’s request for 164 more officers.

The number 75, agreed to by the council and city management, is a compromise figure. Ask for more than that, council members worry, and the levy will be too large for voters to swallow.

“I think the argument is, we need more, 75 is a number,” commented one council member.

NEXT STEP The proposal to create a property levy to pay for more police will return to the City Council Tuesday. If the council approves the measure, a public hearing date would be set, the council would take a final vote and the proposal would be placed on the June 5 ballot for a citywide vote. To pass, the levy would have to be approved by two-thirds of those casting ballots.