ELECTIONS / CITY PROPOSITIONS : Measures Would Hike Taxes to Bolster Police Services : LAPD: Propositions M and N would upgrade the 911 system and add 1,000 officers to the force.

Six months after the terror of the riots and just weeks after a special panel reported on the disarray of the city’s response, Los Angeles voters will have a chance next Tuesday to bolster police service with two ballot measures.

Propositions M and N would, respectively, authorize increased property taxes to upgrade an overloaded 911 emergency communications system for police and firefighters and to add 1,000 police officers to the 7,900 officers budgeted for the Los Angeles Police Department.

The contests pit the public’s general disdain for tax increases against memories of the city’s painfully slow and disorganized response to more than three days of rioting last spring.

Proposals to raise taxes to improve the 911 system and hire more officers have failed several times. And a recent Times poll found strong support for additional taxes to hire more police, but short of the two-thirds needed for passage. Still, backers are counting on visceral memories of the riots and a general public despair over crime to overcome anti-tax sentiment.

“People are feeling a little more frightened now,” said John Stodder, campaign manager for both propositions. “I think people are willing to pay what is really a small amount of money to restore a feeling of safety in the city of Los Angeles.”

Proposition M, to improve the 911 system, has no organized opposition. But taxpayer organizations and fiscal conservatives at City Hall have campaigned against Proposition N, saying that the city should pay for more officers from its $3.8-billion budget.

“Government’s first responsibility is to protect its citizens,” said Joel Fox, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. “We think the mayor and City Council should do that and we think there is already money there to put into police and fire.”

Proposition N would raise more than $100 million a year through property tax increases to pay for 1,000 additional officers over five years. That would cost $73 a year for the owner of a 1,500-square-foot house.

Backers as diverse as Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, have backed the measure.

The extra officers would also help the Police Department fulfill the recommendations of the Christopher Commission to enhance contacts between police and residents, they say.

“One thousand more new officers will make this approach more effective,” Police Chief Willie L. Williams wrote of the measure, saying it would increase “the visibility and responsiveness of our police where it really counts.”

Proponents also have pointed to the relatively small size of the LAPD, with just 2.2 officers for every 1,000 residents, compared to 3.8 officers per 1,000 in New York and 4.1 per 1,000 in Chicago.

Williams has said Proposition N would increase by 18% the number of uniformed officers available for patrol, which averaged just 279 citywide per shift, The Times found in a recent study.

Opponents of Proposition N say the city government has not looked hard enough within its budget for money for more police--suggesting that the semi-independent airport, harbor and redevelopment departments should all contribute more to police the city.

A study several years ago by a conservative think tank showed that as much as $42 million could be cut from the city’s budget for solid-waste treatment and another $33 million annually taken from a fund used to build and maintain parking lots, said Fox, of the Howard Jarvis tax group.

“All these other things should be done first,” before tax increases, Fox said. “This all goes to the idea that police and fire should go before anything else.”

Council members Hal Bernson, Ernani Bernardi and Joan Milke Flores also oppose the measure. Bernson said he will announce a plan today to boost the police force from its 7,900 level to 10,000, without raising taxes.

Bernardi said the city could put the equivalent of more than 700 officers back on the street by fully paying officers for overtime they work, rather than asking most to take time off because the city’s overtime accounts are depleted. The councilman said the money for the overtime could come from the parking lot account or by taking funds from the Community Redevelopment Agency.

“First, we need to take care of the officers we already have and put them on the beat,” Bernardi said. “Then if we still want 1,000 more officers, we can take care of that.”

Measure M would authorize the issuance of $235 million in bonds to be repaid over 20 years by increasing property taxes. The owner of a 1,500-square-foot home would pay $12.75 more a year in taxes to start and up to $26 in subsequent years--less than for hiring more police because the debt is stretched over a longer time.

The money would be used to completely revamp the communications system for the police and fire departments, including construction of a new communications center in the San Fernando Valley, creation of a backup 911 dispatch center and purchase of additional hand-held radios and mobile data terminals for police cars.

More than 300 callers to 911 per day hear a busy signal or are put on hold, with non-responses skyrocketing during major emergencies, Williams said.

Sponsors--backed by many large corporations and developers--launched a television advertising campaign this week to drive home fears about the 911 system. A 30-second ad shows a hand with a gun approaching a door as a woman frantically dials 911, only to get a busy signal. As the woman hangs up in despair, Williams urges a Yes vote on both police measures.

Proposition M received an apparent boost last week when the panel investigating the response to the riots found that the city’s communications system was badly outmoded.

William H. Webster, the former FBI and CIA director who headed the panel, recommended passage of Proposition M, saying: “It costs more money, but a judgment will just have to be made on how and what kind of investments this city is prepared to make to assure the quality of life and safety of its citizens.”

Ballot measures to upgrade the communications system failed in each of the last two years. Last year, the 911 upgrade received approval from 60% of the voters.

In taking the lead campaigning for the measures, Williams has woven support for measures M and N into his general theme of improving relationships between police and the community.

And community leaders, viewing Williams as a popular figure, have asked voters to support him by voting yes on the two measures.

“I think this represents one of the keys to any hopes we have of long-term success in improving the efficiency of the Police Department and in getting past some of the serious relationship problems of the past between the LAPD and the African-American community,” said John Mack, president of the Los Angeles Urban League.

But Los Angeles voters have not been receptive in the past to raising their taxes to hire more police. In 1981 and 1985, such proposals received only 42% of the vote.

A Times poll taken this month suggested that a substantial majority of registered voters, 64%, were willing to accept higher property taxes to hire 1,000 additional officers. The margin of error is 4% in either direction.

But the support voiced for the idea was still short of the required two-thirds and, surprising some backers, it received relatively less support from those hit hardest by the riots.

Just over half of the residents of southern Los Angeles accepted the idea of increasing taxes for more police. Less than half of those who said their neighborhoods suffered “extensive” riot damage wanted to authorize more officers with higher taxes. In contrast, those surveyed whose neighborhoods suffered no riot damage supported the idea by nearly two-thirds.