Ballot Campaign Started to Create a Police Force : * Law enforcement: Group wants to end the city’s contract with the Sheriff’s Department. It calls deputies insensitive to the gay community.

A citizens group in West Hollywood launched a campaign this week to force the city to establish its own police department.

Since incorporating seven years ago, the city has contracted with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for law enforcement services. The arrangement has come under intermittent criticism, particularly from activists in the gay community who have accused deputies of harassment and of being insensitive toward victims of gay-bashing incidents.

Organizers of the group, Citizens For a West Hollywood Police Department, believe that a local force would be more responsive.

“We want to gain control and establish our priorities,” spokesman Howard Armistead told about 50 people at the group’s first meeting on Tuesday. “This is not a radical movement and we’re not trying to scare people. We want our police to live in our community and to represent our community.”

Armistead, a Los Angeles resident who works in West Hollywood, said an independent police department would be more representative of the city population, and would probably include a significant number of lesbians, gays and members of the Russian community. Apparently unaware that state law prohibits residency requirements, Armistead said he would seek a rule that at least half of the police force live in the city.

The idea for an independent police force is not new. The City Council has considered establishing one several times, but has rejected it each time after concluding that the cost would be too high. This is the first time, however, that a group has tried to bring the matter before the voters.

To get the matter on the ballot, organizers need to collect 4,202 signatures, or 20% of the city’s registered voters, a process expected to take several months. Organizers said they did not expect to complete the job in time for the city primary election in April, but hoped to have the measure on the ballot of the June general election.

In the same election, Mayor Paul Koretz and Councilwoman Abbe Land are expected to seek reelection, and supporters of the police measure said they expect the measure to be a campaign issue.

Most city officials defend the Sheriff’s Department arrangement, saying that deputies have been professional in their work and that creating an independent force would be far more expensive.

“People might not be happy with the Sheriff’s Department every minute but they still feel secure,” said Nancy Greenstein, the city’s public safety coordinator. “There are a lot of resources behind the department that we can use.”

Armistead and others, however, say the city could operate its own force for about the same amount it pays the county. Although Armistead said there would be start-up costs, he could not provide any numbers.

The city is in the second year of a five-year contract with the Sheriff’s Department. This year, it has allocated $9.3 million to buy a number of services, including around-the-clock patrols with a minimum of 10 deputies on each shift. The city also pays for special crime-prevention units, as well as community service and parking-control officers.

City Manager Paul Brotzman said the City Council has considered an independent police force on a number of occasions but backed away each time because of the cost. A 1989 economic evaluation showed that the city would have to come up with at least $3 million more a year to run its own police department. The extra money would pay for start-up costs of buying new equipment, for backup and secretarial work, and for special services, including detective work and forensic analyses now provided by the Sheriff’s Department.

City officials recognize the tensions between the gay community and the Sheriff’s Department. They added a non-discrimination clause to their most recent contract in July, 1990. The clause bars consideration of sexual orientation in job hiring.