Tax Funds for Jails

Your Dec. 21 editorial, “Inspiring Fear--and Bad Government,” states that “the State Supreme Court ruling overturning a half-cent sales tax for jails and courts passed by a majority of San Diego County voters--but not a two-thirds majority--is a major disappointment, especially in a year with a record number of homicides. . . .” The editorial goes on to say that the super majority requirements of Proposition 13 make it “virtually impossible for (voters) to exercise their rights to pass a tax for the public good.”

“It’s hard to believe,” continues the editorial, “that the Californians who voted for Proposition 13 meant to make it this tough to build something as essential to public safety as jails.”

Has The Times changed its position?

Your newspaper disregarded the similar needs of its own community when it came out in opposition to the jail construction measure, Proposition A, that I introduced for the Nov. 6, 1990, ballot. At a time when homicides in Los Angeles County were being committed at a record pace, and hundreds of thousands of inmates were being given early releases or emergency citation releases, an Oct. 26, 1990, editorial opposed to Proposition A stated “. . . both the solution it proposes (a program of jail construction) and the method it would use to finance it (an increase in the sales tax) are unsuitable to the task.”

I sincerely hope that your newspaper’s change of heart in San Diego County’s case is your journalistic way of recognizing that continuing increases in crime demand increases in jail cells to house criminals.

SHERIFF SHERMAN BLOCK

Los Angeles County