Police Union Plans Campaign to Push for More Patrol Officers : Law Enforcement: City Hall lobbying effort and a voter initiative drive are being discussed as ways to increase police force numbers.

Increasingly disturbed by the dwindling presence of San Diego police, the labor group representing most of the city’s 1,850 officers is busily planning ways to put more cops on the street, possibly through a ballot initiative next year.

Informal talks within the San Diego Police Officers Assn. the past few months have produced sketchy plans of how to proceed early next year, from heavy lobbying at City Hall to an all-out signature-gathering drive that will bring public safety to the forefront.

“We’re very early into researching our alternatives,” said Harry O. Eastus, president of the group. “But our No. 1 priority is getting more officers on the street. The citizens here deserve a better service.”

The Times reported Sunday that police patrols have deteriorated to the point that officers routinely respond five or six hours late to all but the most life-threatening calls. About 25% to 30% of the time, the city does not meet even the minimum recommended staffing.

So depleted is the force that detectives no longer investigate burglaries unless the victim can identify the suspect, nor do patrol officers respond to the scenes of traffic accidents where nobody is injured.

Norman Stamper, the department’s second in command who has worked patrol the past four months, called San Diego “a dangerously under-policed city.”

Though everyone agrees that more police are needed, finding the money has always been tricky.

Although the police union is in no way set over what it wants to do, it is leaning toward asking the City Council to support a five-year plan of adding officers, several hundred a year, until the ratio of officers to population reaches more than two per 1,000.

The ratio is now 1.6 per 1,000, ranking San Diego ninth among the 10 most populous cities for each of the past three years.

“We’ve been promised two officers per thousand for the past seven to 10 years,” Eastus said. “Doing with what we have is like rearranging the chairs on the Titanic.”

Ron Newman, the association’s vice president, said the figure should be much higher, perhaps 2.4 per 1,000. To reach Newman’s suggested ratio, the city would have to hire 800 officers.

“This issue has come right to the surface,” Newman said. “The community is not getting the police services it deserves. It’s not a shot at the police administration, but it has gotten to the point that you have to speak out.”

The labor union has a number of options for getting an initiative on the ballot, possibly by next June.

The most popular plan so far, according to those familiar with the discussions, is to persuade the council to approve a measure for the ballot that, if passed, would require the addition of officers in increments of several hundred over the next five years.

If the council decides not to go along with the plan, union members may begin gathering the 65,000 valid signatures needed to place the initiative on the ballot anyway.

Rather than seek a tax increase to pay for the new officers, POA members have talked about mandating that the extra patrols come from within the city’s existing budget, thereby forcing the council to somehow find the money.

“It’s up to the people who deal with the budget to make those hard decisions,” Eastus said. “We’d like to make suggestions to them and give them directions. But they are there to serve the people. They have just so much (money) to work with, but they are there to make the hard decisions.”

It is unclear whether members of the City Council are willing to go along with such a plan. Council members Judy McCarty and John Hartley told The Times last week that the department should make do with its current resources.

Historically, the POA rarely has gone public with its efforts to increase public safety, other than to support favored candidates who feel most strongly about the force.

Last week, Newman said the union for years has been concentrating specifically on increasing the salaries of officers rather than figuring a way to increase its ranks.

“I think that’s all about to change,” Newman said. “Stay tuned the new couple of months.”

Having already come to terms with the council on a labor contract that runs through mid-1993, the union is now more likely to go public with its concerns, according to union officials.

“The political action committee of the board has about $50,000, and by the time they move forward next year, they may have $100,000,” said one source close to the discussions. “They can spend money on mayoral campaigns, or they can put it toward a ballot initiative, possibly with television ads.”

Publicly, POA leaders are much more coy about their strategy, declining to talk specifics. But, should they go forward with a ballot proposition, which is expected, the message is going to be quite clear, they say.

“Our argument is going to be that you have a right, when you call a police officer, to get some help faster than seven minutes and 45 seconds (the average response time to an emergency call),” Eastus said. “Someone can do a lot of damage to you, your wife, your son, your husband, your property in that amount of time.”

Administrators at police headquarters are careful not to publicly discuss who will champion the cause for new cops.

“Our position is that we need more officers,” said Stamper, the executive assistant police chief. “How that comes about is the function of the political process. We are in competition with other services we don’t want to see cut either. The only solution is a form of fresh revenue.”