City Council Support for Police Plan Falls Short : Referendum: Three members back long-range proposal, but police need additional council votes to avoid collecting signatures to get the issue on the ballot.

A proposal to nearly double the San Diego police force by the end of the decade so far falls short of the City Council support it needs to get on the ballot without a signature drive.

Although three members of the council announced their endorsement Wednesday for a ballot measure that seeks to add 1,400 officers to the force by 1999, the balance of the council either opposed the idea or had not seen the plan.

The Police Officers Assn., which represents most of the department’s 1,855 officers, had hoped to win the blessing of five of the council’s nine members. Without that support, it faces the chore and expense of having to collect 82,549 valid signatures of registered voters in the city.

If approved, the measure would trigger a change in the City Charter making law enforcement the council’s top priority.

The charter amendment would require the city to maintain 1.8 officer per 1,000 population by the last day of 1993, two per thousand by the end of 1995, 2.2 per thousand by the end of 1997 and 2.4 per thousand by the last day of 1999.

The ballot measure does not describe how the new positions, estimated to cost $9 million to $10 million a year over seven years, would be financed, but its council proponents--Ron Roberts, Bob Filner and Tom Behr--say the existing city budget can handle the expense.

“Some people will say we cannot afford to hire the needed police officers,” Filner said. “I say we cannot afford not to.”

But council members contacted Tuesday and Wednesday were not ready to support the ballot measure. Newly elected council members Valerie Stallings and George Stevens said through press aides that, although they support adding officers to the force, they had not seen the police union’s plan and could not comment.

Mayor Maureen O’Connor opposes the plan, saying it would mean hiring officers at the expense of needed city services. Council member John Hartley said he has problems with endorsing a “blank check” that could hurt future city budgets.

Council member Judy McCarty said Tuesday that she had not seen the proposal but that it “sounded interesting.” Council member Abbe Wolfsheimer said Wednesday she is skeptical of the plan because “just as important as police officers is preventing crime through after-school recreation programs, parks, libraries and other programs.”

The cool council reaction raises questions over whether the police union can rely on the council to place the measure on the ballot or whether it will need signatures instead.

“A lot of people are on the sidelines coming up with excuses (for not supporting the ballot measure) because they don’t want the money allocated for such a long period of time,” Roberts said. “But we can find the money. I’m sure of it.”

The expense of providing police officers does not end in 1999. From then on, the City Council must maintain no less than 2.4 officers per thousand in a city that is projected to grow well into the next decade.

The money might come from any number of sources, Roberts said, from increased property tax revenues raised through redevelopment projects to the leasing or sale of city-owned property.

The department now has 1.6 officers per 1,000 population, one of the lowest rates of the 10 most populous cities. It also has one of the lowest crime rates.

By 1999, the City Council would need 3,288 officers, or 78% more than it has now, to meet those goals.

“We’ve all promised to raise the number of officers to two per thousand, but when we get to the crisis of the moment in the budget, it prevents us from doing that,” Filner said. “With a charter change, we will be locked into finding an innovative way to do that without bowing to the crisis of the moment.”

Behr, Roberts and union vice president Ron Newman acknowledged that, with a lack of new jail and courtroom space, the influx of arrests that more officers would bring might overwhelm the criminal justice system.

“We’ve got to start somewhere,” Behr said. “In the end, the people will have to decide whether the prevention of crime is a high priority or not.”

Filner initially called reporters questions about specifics, such as the lack of jail space or a spending program, “quibbling” but later in the press conference noted that such issues are valid.

“These are really tough issues,” he said. “We’ve got to grapple with them, and we don’t have the answers, frankly. The fact that this is on the table forces us to come to grips with these tough issues. It’s about time we did.”

Police Chief Bob Burgreen said he was gratified that city and union officials are supporting the need for more officers.

“The suggested number of officers would provide me greater flexibility and stop the shell game that we go through every time we have a major problem,” he said. “With the additional officers, I can promise better response time, neighborhood policing teams and a return to sending officers to homes that are burglarized.”