Hearing on New Police Tax Proposal

The Hawthorne City Council has scheduled a public hearing Aug. 6 to discuss placing on the November ballot a new version of the police funding measure that voters narrowly rejected last month.

Hawthorne Police Chief Stephen Port predicted Monday that this time voters would approve a tax to pay for more police officers.

Port told the council that many people had expressed concern about a provision in the defeated measure, Proposition D, that would have given the council the option of increasing the tax in the future. He said he would recommend deleting that provision from the new measure.

In response to comments by Councilwoman Ginny Lambert, Port said the sample ballot this time would contain a complete text of the measure. Some critics of Proposition D complained that voters did not know what they were voting on because the sample ballot did not have a copy of the measure’s wording.

The property tax measure would have generated $2.9 million to allow the Police Department to hire an additional 35 officers. The measure won a majority in every precinct but fell short of the necessary two-thirds approval by 58 votes, or less than 1%.

“There was a narrow margin of loss in Proposition D, and that’s encouraging,” Port said. “We took good notes and believe minor areas of concern can be remedied.”

Although the department submitted a no-growth budget to the council this month, Port said he needs to beef up his force to deal with Hawthorne’s rising crime rate.

During the first six months of this year, he said, the number of violent crimes rose 14%, from 3,232 in the same period last year to 3,676. Robbery, assault and larceny showed the largest increases. Homicides decreased from 7 to 3, but all other violent crimes were up, Port said.