ELECTIONS : Valley Key to Defeat of Prop. N

San Fernando Valley voters stuck to their property tax-wary roots and were a key factor in the defeat of a citywide measure that would have reinforced the thin blue line of the Los Angeles Police Department with 1,000 new officers.

But, in a remarkable performance that demonstrated his broad suburban appeal, Democratic President-elect Bill Clinton outdrew incumbent George Bush in many communities and areas of the Valley that often lean toward Republicans.

Those are two conclusions drawn from a breakdown supplied by the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder of Valley voting in last week’s general election. Votes were broken down by community and by Los Angeles City Council district.

Clinton, for example, outpolled Bush in such affluent areas as Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Glendale, Chatsworth, Porter Ranch and Northridge. Bush had scored resounding victories in all those areas in 1988.

Bush still managed to prevail over his opponent in Santa Clarita, Lancaster and Palmdale, but by far smaller margins than four years ago.

Victorious Democratic U.S. Senate candidates Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer also ran strongly in the Valley and nearby communities.

Paul Clarke, a Northridge-based political consultant, said Clinton ran well in the Valley because it has been hit especially hard by defense industry rollbacks and because Clinton vowed to attack the nation’s economic problems.

“People here are trying to live the American Dream and there is a threat to it,” Clarke said. “The Bush people never got around to addressing the fact that people are hurting.”

Clarke said the failure of Proposition N, the police tax measure, to get the support it needed in the Valley resulted less from the Valley’s conservatism than from practical considerations: The measure’s backers never clearly defined what the Valley would get out of it.

“The Valley experience is that somehow we always get screwed when it comes to money being passed out,” he said.

The measure had to win two-thirds of the vote to pass and last Tuesday’s balloting gave it 63% citywide. The tax fared better than similar ones in the past but still fell short of what was needed for passage.

Support for the measure in the four City Council districts located entirely in the Valley ranged from 51% in the northeast Valley’s 7th District to 55% in the West Valley’s 3rd District, according to the figures compiled by the registrar-recorder.

In the 11 council districts outside the Valley, support ranged from over 70% in areas of South and Central Los Angeles and on the Westside to a low of 58% in East Los Angeles’ 14th District.

The proposition won 52% of the vote in the 12th District, which includes the affluent communities of Chatsworth, Northridge and Porter Ranch, and got 55% of the ballots in the 2nd District, which includes the largely working-class communities of Sunland-Tujunga, North Hollywood and Van Nuys. According to a precinct analysis, strong opposition to the additional taxes needed to retire the bonds occurred in pockets of semi-rural Sunland-Tujunga and Granada Hills.

The measure would have cost the owner of a 1,500-square-foot house about $100 annually, and Councilwoman Joy Picus, whose 3rd District includes Woodland Hills, Canoga Park and Reseda, said her constituents told her they did not want to add to their property tax burden. She also said the proposition’s supporters did little to ensure its passage.

“If it had had anything like the campaign that Proposition F had, it would have . . . had an excellent chance of passing,” Picus said. Proposition F, which implemented many of the Police Department management reforms recommended by the Christopher Commission in the wake of the Rodney G. King beating, was approved by voters last June.

Given the lack of a concerted effort to win the measure’s passage, Picus said she was “astonished” that it performed as well as it did.

John Stodder, a consultant for the Yes on N effort, said the campaign spent less than $200,000 on propositions N and M combined. Measure M, a $235-million bond issue to upgrade the city’s 911 system, garnered 77% of the vote citywide and also won enthusiastic backing in all areas of the Valley.

“We really had a pretty easy sell and if we could have gathered a little better funding for our efforts we probably would have gone over the top for N as well,” he said.

He said “the people in the Valley, as well as the rest of the city, are telling their elected representatives that, ‘damn it, we need more cops.’ ”

Stodder and others said the lukewarm support for--or opposition to--the tax measure by the four City Council members whose districts fall wholly within the Valley held it back.

Councilman Hal Bernson, who represents the 12th District, and Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who represents the 7th District, spoke out against the tax measure. Joel Wachs, the 2nd District councilman, backed an alternative method of paying for more officers and Picus backed away from her initial strong support for Proposition N after determining that her constituents lacked enthusiasm for it.

Police Department staffing has fallen from 8,300 in 1990, when budget shortfalls necessitated a hiring freeze, to about 7,800. Attrition is expected to reduce staffing to 7,600 by next year.

The reduction in the number of officers has caused response times in the Valley to increase and, just last week, the department’s Foothill Division announced that it was disbanding a popular and successful anti-drug force. At the same time, many Valley residents say they no longer feel safe in their suburban neighborhoods.

“The same people who are the most vocal on the issues of crime are those people who are very much opposed to government intervention and regulation and taxes,” said Richard Alarcon, Mayor Tom Bradley’s deputy for the Valley. Bradley backed both police-related measures on the ballot.

Voters “had to make a decision based on concern for rising taxes as well as their desire for more police services and a majority of the people indicated they wanted more services and were willing to pay for them, but because of the need to get a two-thirds vote, those concerned about taxes and increased government cost prevailed,” Alarcon said.

The Valley’s support for Clinton was more enthusiastic than the nation’s as a whole. He won 46% of the votes nationwide but captured 51% in both the 2nd Council District, which includes Van Nuys, North Hollywood and Sunland-Tujunga, and the 3rd District, which includes Woodland Hills, Canoga Park and Reseda. He carried the northeast Valley’s 7th District with 53% of the vote.

Even the normally fiercely Republican northwest Valley gave him 44% of the vote, compared to 32% for Bush and 22% for Ross Perot.

Perot’s performance hovered between 19% and 22% across the Valley, but he captured 27% of the votes in Santa Clarita, 26% in Palmdale and 24% in Lancaster. Nationwide, Perot got 19% of the votes.

That performance failed to buoy Rick Pamplin, a Perot-affiliated candidate who ran a relatively well-financed insurgent campaign in the 25th Congressional District. Pamplin got only 7% of the vote.