Officials Readying Cutbacks in Services

Los Angeles County and city officials began planning Wednesday for sweeping cuts and a funding crunch in mental health programs, jail facilities, the 911 emergency telephone system and other services after voters rejected a host of state and local tax measures on Election Day.

With the defeat of Proposition 134, the so-called “nickel-a-drink” tax, the county could be forced to cut up to $57 million in public health programs, resulting in the closure of most of the 19 county-run mental health clinics, officials said.

Supervisor Ed Edelman said the Board of Supervisors will request a meeting with governor-elect Pete Wilson to seek alternative funding sources for the programs.

“This is a serious setback to county services,” Edelman said. “We won’t have funding for mental health, trauma care, alcohol-abuse treatment and services for battered women. . . . It’s going to take some state action to keep us going. The present governor hasn’t done much to help us.”

The defeat of Proposition A, a half-cent sales tax hike, is expected to exacerbate conditions in the county’s already-strained jail system. With the county under court order to relieve overcrowding by limiting the jail population to about 25,000 inmates, those sentenced to 30 days now serve only 11.

“We were already in a crisis,” Sheriff Sherman Block said. “There is no contingency plan. You have only two choices . . . lock them up or let them out.”

Supporters of the municipal and countywide initiatives blamed the defeats on an angry electorate and a long ballot, crowded with 14 state bond propositions and five Los Angeles County and city measures.

The bond measures were at the end of the ballot, following a daunting array of initiatives designed to raise money for everything from schools to old-growth redwood forests.

“People in this county and this state are upset with the initiative process,” Edelman said. “The number of the initiatives, the competing (propositions) and the complexity. I think that’s why they voted no.”

With the defeat of Proposition J, police officials said nearly 1 million 911 calls--including 100,000 emergencies--will go unanswered this year because the system is hopelessly outdated.

Los Angeles Police Capt. Greg Berg recalled a recent incident in which the mother of a 2-year-old child shot in a drive-by shooting could not get through to a 911 operator.

“That happens all the time on the 911 system,” Berg said. “It just isn’t publicized.”

City Councilman Richard Alatorre, chairman of the Public Safety Committee, said that despite the defeat, the system still must be replaced. One option, he said, is to tap the city’s general fund. But with recent budget slashing, there is no money available without cutting other programs.

Also defeated Tuesday was Proposition B, a county bond measure that would have boosted property taxes to pay for an array of recreational and cultural projects, and Proposition K, a municipal bond measure that would have provided $80 million for nonprofit groups to buy and rehabilitate low-income housing.