Voters Favor Term Limits; Police Tax Fails

Despite a heightened concern over crime citywide, a ballot measure that would raise property taxes to reinforce the Los Angeles Police Department with 1,000 additional officers failed Tuesday, unable to collect the necessary two-thirds majority.

With nearly all of the vote counted, Proposition 1 posted a solid majority but fell well shy of the 66% majority required for adoption. It is identical to a measure narrowly defeated last year.

Voters also adopted municipal government term limits that will forever change the character of City Hall politics. Two similar term-limit proposals appeared certain to be adopted, with the only question being which measure would get the most votes, giving it precedence over the other. Both proposals set term limits for the mayor, city attorney, controller and City Council members.

Proposition 4, a term limits initiative spearheaded by mayoral candidate Richard Riordan, was running narrowly ahead of Proposition 2, a similar measure placed on the ballot by the City Council. Proposition 2 would have less immediate impact than Proposition 4.

From the beginning, the police tax measure appeared to be a long shot to win because it had no organized campaign in support and because it was overshadowed by the mayor’s race.

Joel Fox, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer’s Assn., a key opponent to the measure, said the defeat of Proposition 1 sends the message that voters want elected officials to pay for additional police by cutting funds for other programs rather than by raising taxes.

Police Chief Willie L. Williams declined to comment on the election results, but Los Angeles Police Commission President Jesse A. Brewer said the city would have little choice but to find the funds elsewhere in the budget.

“This is the second time we’ve gone to the voters and failed,” he said. “Now it’s up to the mayor and City Council members to provide the essential resources to ensure public safety.”

Another police-related measure, Proposition 3, which would amend the City Charter to permit the city to rehire retired LAPD officers for up to 12 months as full-time or part-time employees, did better at the polls, with voters approving it by a wide margin.

The victory for the term limit measures came as no surprise to most City Council members.

Councilman Marvin Braude, who was reelected in the 11th District to his eighth term, said he expected the term limit amendments to do well. “There’s a national flood of support for term limits,” he said. “I don’t think they were stoppable under any circumstances.”

Riordan, who has been involved in politics as a campaign donor and as an appointee to boards and commissions but who has never held elective office, said support for his measure “proves that the voters are fed up with the politicians and they want some new blood.”

Voters also approved Proposition 5, which would upgrade the city Board of Animal Regulation Commissioners from an advisory body to head the Department of Animal Regulation. The measure was sponsored by City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter.

Last year’s police tax measure was narrowly defeated, when it received 63% support at the polls, just shy of the necessary two-thirds support.

Braude led the effort to put the measure back on the ballot, arguing that voters should get another try at adopting the tax to hire more police because they came so close to passing it the first time.

But opponents, including City Councilmen Ernani Bernardi and Hal Bernson, say that higher property taxes are not needed to hire the additional officers.

Bernson has proposed a City Charter amendment that would ensure that police and fire services are funded before all other city services, with the Police Department to be expanded from 7,690 officers to 10,000 by 1997. He is collecting signatures to place the proposal on the ballot in 1994.

Supporters of the police tax included Williams, Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti and City Council President John Ferraro. They signed an impassioned ballot argument that said: “We have too few police to protect us. . . . Unless we do something, things will only get worse, and you or your loved ones may be next.”

Los Angeles has the lowest ratio of police officers to residents of the six largest U.S. cities. (It has 2.4 officers per 1,000 residents, compared to 3.6 officers per 1,000 residents in New York.)

Despite intense public concern over crime shown in most polls, there was little campaigning either for or against Proposition 1 in the weeks leading to Tuesday’s vote.

The massive police deployment in response to the verdicts in the Rodney G. King civil rights trial on Saturday led to a late appeal by Williams, however. He said the show of force reduced street violence--particularly murders, assaults and robberies--by 12% citywide and that adoption of the measure would allow him to regularly deploy such strength.

Proponents said the cost of the measure would have been spread fairly among commercial, industrial and residential property taxpayers, and police hired by the measure would have been on the streets, not behind desks. The owner of an average home would have paid about $73 a year.

The two term-limit measures on the ballot, Propositions 2 and 4, were born of a battle of one-upmanship.

Lawyer-businessman and mayoral candidate Riordan led the petition drive that initiated Proposition 4. The other term limit measure, Proposition 2, is the City Council’s response to Riordan.

Both proposals restrict the mayor, city attorney, controller and City Council members to two, four-year terms. Proposition 4 is more restrictive because it would limit half the current council members to only one more full term. The City Council’s measure ensures that all current council members could run for two additional terms.