LOCAL ELECTIONS : West Hollywood Police Issue Among Measures on City Ballots

Citing reports of homophobia within the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, a group of gay West Hollywood residents is pushing a remarkably well-financed campaign to create an independent police force in the 8-year-old city.

The proposal has polarized the liberal community--pitting renegade political novices against the city’s Establishment and stirring worries of a lasting rift between the large gay community and heterosexuals who have generally supported such innovations as the city law recognizing gay couples.

The initiative to be voted on Tuesday requires the City Council to set up a police force in one year. It would end the city’s annual $8.4-million contract with the Sheriff’s Department, which patrols from a station on the west end of town.

In three other Los Angeles County cities, gambling is an issue that will be decided Tuesday.

Inglewood and Hawthorne voters will determine if they want a card club in their cities, which like most in California this year are looking for new revenues. The long recession has cut into their sales tax revenues.

Long Beach voters will decide whether to authorize the establishment of a card casino on or near the Queen Mary as one means of keeping the ship in that city.

In West Hollywood, proponents of a local police force portray the move as a way to gain tighter control over law enforcement costs, put gays on the force and usher the city of 36,000 to adulthood.

“Everyone feels it’s eight years late,” said John Underwood, spokesman for the sponsors, West Hollywood Citizens for Better Police Protection. “Nevertheless, it’s a great idea.”

The effort has been fueled by heightened attention to police issues areawide, along with a surging gay activism ignited in large part by Gov. Pete Wilson’s veto last year of the landmark gay-rights bill AB 101.

The ballot measure would establish the first new police force in Los Angeles County in more than 20 years, bucking a regional trend that has seen more new cities hire the county or neighboring cities to patrol their streets. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department patrols 42 cities by contract, including the seven that have incorporated since 1980.

“From what we’ve seen, it’s probably cheaper to contract,” said Robert Fuller, a senior analyst with the state’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training.

The sponsors say a local force could save money by giving the city a better grip on deployment and spending, though experts statewide say that operating costs of a city police force generally run about 30% higher than contracting.

The initiative’s foes, a “Who’s Who” of West Hollywood civic life, charge that the extra costs of matching Sheriff Department services--they estimate up to $6 million more--would endanger the city’s generous social service programs and spell higher taxes.

The City Council opposes the measure, as does the powerful renters’ rights group that dominates city politics.

And the city’s mainstream gay leaders are arguing against cutting ties with the Sheriff’s Department just when pressure from city activists is producing widely praised changes in its policies toward homosexuals.

This summer’s Kolts report found widespread anti-gay bias throughout the department, but it singled out West Hollywood as a model for sensitivity training and community-based policing. In particular, the report credited the department for its peaceful handling of the massive AB 101 demonstrations that centered in West Hollywood.

“If we are to benefit our gay brothers and sisters in other parts of the county, we need to keep the L.A. Sheriff’s Department here in West Hollywood,” said Wuzzy Spaulding, who heads a gay and lesbian committee that works with station personnel to improve relations.

Some residents openly question the sponsors’ motives.

“They have a hidden agenda--they want a gay police force,” said Budd Kops, an activist in the Save Our Sheriff coalition.

“Community-based policing--local control--is the issue,” said Underwood. “The gay thing only comes in because this is West Hollywood and a third of West Hollywood is gay.”

The effort has been bankrolled almost completely by outspoken gay-rights activist Christopher Fairchild, who has lent $50,000.

Both sides are predicting a close vote that could hinge on whether the city’s gays turn out in force and vote as a bloc--things they have not done in the past.

Passage of the measure would likely invite a court challenge from opponents. The city attorney has said the initiative is legally flawed, but the City Council voted to put it on the ballot rather than irritate the more than 4,500 residents who signed petitions.

In Inglewood, Proposition E would allow Hollywood Park Race Track to put a card club in the Cary Grant Pavilion there. Backers of the idea, including the mayor and the City Council, say a club would bring 2,600 jobs and $10 million in revenues to the city.

If Hawthorne voters approve Proposition P, a card club would be allowed in the redevelopment area alongside the soon-to-be-opened Century Freeway. As in Inglewood, jobs and tax revenues are the selling points stressed by the card club campaign.

In both cities, the campaigns against the card club referendums are being funded almost exclusively by casino groups in other cities, the Bicycle Club in Bell Gardens and the Normandie Club in Gardena.

Long Beach City officials put Proposition J on the ballot after a consultant found that opening a high-grossing card casino would be the only way the money-losing Queen Mary tourist attraction could operate in the black.

The Walt Disney Co., which has operated the Queen Mary under a lease since 1988, reportedly has lost as much as $10.8 million a year on the ship. Disney is leaving the tourist attraction at the end of the year. The city’s independently governed Harbor Department, which has jurisdiction over the Queen Mary, wants to sell the vessel. But the City Council is negotiating to take control of the ship, which it would lease to another operator.

Members of Citizens for Proposition J, a small group of residents, business people and Queen Mary employees, have been phoning city voters urging them to approve the gambling measure to keep the Queen Mary and its hundreds of jobs in Long Beach. There is no organized campaign against the measure.

Times staff writers Richard Holguin and Michele Fuetsch contributed to this story.