HUNTINGTON BEACH : Mayor to Lobby for Crime Bill in D.C.

Mayor Linda Moulton-Patterson will travel to Washington today to lobby for a federal anti-crime bill that could give the city much-needed money to hire police officers and develop crime prevention programs.

“We need more police--there’s no doubt about it,” Moulton-Patterson said Tuesday after a morning news conference at City Hall. “I’m fighting for anything I can do in the area of public safety.”

Moulton-Patterson announced her plans to attend a White House meeting Thursday with President Clinton and Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, and she will meet later with House leaders, including members of Orange County’s congressional delegation.

The mayor, who said she is paying for her trip, added that she wants to call for swift passage of an anti-crime bill that would provide $23 billion nationwide to local governments. Congress is expected to vote on the bill this month.

Huntington Beach officials said the measure would provide funds not only for new police officers, but also for crime prevention measures, youth recreation and training programs, drug rehabilitation, and new prisons and “boot camps” for young offenders.

“I think the bill is extremely important--that’s why I’m making the trip,” Moulton-Patterson said.

The mayor said that Orange County cities would benefit from the bill’s passage because local law enforcement agencies need more money for anti-crime efforts, including putting more police officers on the streets.

However, Police Chief Ronald Lowenberg said that if the bill were passed, such criteria as a city’s crime rate, level of poverty and unemployment rate would be factors in how cities receive money. Because Huntington Beach’s crime rate is not high enough, he said, the city would not meet the criteria under the pending bill to receive money for new officers.

“But we’re not going to give up on that,” he said, adding that the city plans to lobby for federal money to hire officers anyway. The city is hoping that provisions of the bill affecting funding criteria will be changed before it is adopted.

Moulton-Patterson said it is not known how much Huntington Beach would receive if the bill were passed.

The bill, she said, would provide assistance to cities nationwide over a five-year period. The money would come from cutbacks in the federal payroll--not from increasing taxes, the mayor added.

“Even if it results in adding one DARE (drug abuse education) officer, the trip will be worth it,” she said.

Lowenberg said that at a time when the city faces budget woes and rising rates of violent offenses and gang problems, “every dollar helps” in fighting crime.