First ‘The Verdict’ and Today ‘The Vote’ : Angelenos actually have a chance to put 1,000 more police officers on the streets by approving Prop. 1. This time, they might actually do it.

First, there was The Verdict--a term spoken as if there was only one, sort of like The Valley. And now, only three days after 12 men and women in a federal jury announced the results of their ballot, the people of Los Angeles will today take a whack at their ballot.

The Verdict and now The Vote. But maybe I’m getting carried away. Fact is, folks seem to think this election is a lower-case affair. We, The People seem to be underwhelmed by them, the candidates.

Driving along Ventura Boulevard this weekend, I came upon this scene at an intersection in Sherman Oaks: a brigade of campaign volunteers waving signs and exhorting motorists to honk horns in a show support for their candidate.

Red light. Perhaps 100 motorists either drive by or wait for green. There was one solitary toot--perhaps an impatient driver. The rest of us might be considered The Silent Majority.

This is a historic L.A. election, yet people just don’t seem to be interested in the prelim. They want the runoff. Even the candidates seem to be holding their charisma in reserve.

And that’s too bad. Because it’s easy to forget that voters--particularly Valley voters--really can make a difference in this election. Angelenos actually have a chance to put 1,000 more police officers on the streets by approving Proposition 1.

This time, they might actually do it. Last November, only six months after the riot, an identical measure won 63% of the vote citywide, but fell short of the two-thirds needed to raise property taxes. All that’s needed is another 4%.

Police Chief Willie Williams says if you really want to give “community-policing” a chance to work--if you want a kinder, gentler, more effective LAPD--just say yes to 1,000 more police officers. If you worry that bad guys will hurt you, your family, your friends or the stranger across town, vote yes. Hell, if all you care about is your plummeting property value, has Chief Williams got a deal for you: For an LAPD that’s 15% larger, the average owner of the typical 1,500-square-foot home will pay only $73 per year.

Proposition 1 goes to the heart of the great irony of Los Angeles--the question of who really does and who really doesn’t support the LAPD.

Well before Rodney King’s civil rights were violated, there were signs that the relationship of Daryl Gates’ LAPD with the city’s black and Latino communities was strained. It was homeowners in The Valley, most folks thought, who supposedly adored Daryl and the rest of the criminal justice system.

But last spring, several police officers down at the embattled 77th Street Division reminded me that such impressions can be deceiving. These were the men and women who had been overwhelmed by rioters at Florence and Normandie. A couple weeks later, I interviewed several for a story about the dangers and difficulties of policing post-riot Los Angeles.

Remember, these officers said, the residents in their precinct are far more likely to be the victims of crimes rather than the perpetrators. Southside voters, they pointed out, have historically supported measures to put more police on the streets.

The 77th Division officers made a point of telling me that Valley voters, by and large, have consistently voted against such measures. Valley voters are one reason why Los Angeles has one of the lowest police-to-population ratios among American big cities, with 2.2 officers for every 1,000 residents. New York, by comparison, has 3.8 per 1,000 and Chicago has 4.1 per 1,000. (The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, incidentally, is no better off than the LAPD.)

You could look it up. Measures in 1981 and ’85 that would have increased taxes to hire police officers were badly beaten in The Valley. Folks here apparently believed that more police officers really weren’t all that necessary and even if they were, they’d be deployed “over the hill” where the crime was.

Yet those were more innocent days, a time when the twin issues of development and transportation occupied the front burner here in The Valley. Now we worry mostly about education and crime. Where once the focus was on the finer points of preserving a lifestyle--of traffic studies and zoning variances--now people are thinking more about matters of good and evil, life and death.

More than a decade has passed since Moon Unit Zappa sang of the Valley Girl and her shopping malls. Now she’s grown up and worried that her Valley Child may encounter and perhaps join “posses” that wage turf battles with cans of spray paint and, sometimes, with guns. And she worries about carjackers.

Last November, some politicos were shocked that in the tax-hating San Fernando Valley--the birthplace of Proposition 13, no less--a majority of voters said yes to the measure that would have added 1,000 police officers. The majorities were between 51% and 55% in all four council districts wholly contained within The Valley. This support was far less than the 70% it received on the city’s Southside, but it seems like some people in these parts are taking off their blinders.

Of course, I could be wrong about that. The other day, I looked in the pre-verdict “rumor control” center at Councilwoman Joy Picus’ field office. How many callers who are now so fearful of crime had voted against the police measures of the past? Now that the fear of another riot has been put aside for the moment, do you stop worrying about burglars and robbers and even that 13-year-old kid who could be the neighborhood tagger?

Maybe you have. Maybe you’ll vote no.

Well, don’t forget. We’ve still got The Other Verdict coming up.

One final note:

I am not that Scott Harris. I am not the Scott Harris who back in October, 1991, earned a degree of fame, five days in jail, two years’ probation and a $2,000 fine by sky-diving through circling TV helicopters into Michael Jackson’s Ventura County estate with a video camera attached to his helmet. He was hoping to record the wedding of Elizabeth Taylor and Larry Fortensky in the interest of posterity, the people’s right to know and a promise of serious money from print and TV tabloids. It’s hard not to admire his chutzpah. Too bad his camera didn’t work.

Hate to disappoint you, but there are many Scott Harrises around Los Angeles. I’m the one whose byline has appeared hundreds of times in this newspaper over the past 14 years. The one who is sky-diving into a new job as a columnist . . . and the ground sure is coming up fast.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Readers may reach Harris by writing to him at the Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, Ca . 91311.