CYPRESS : City Plans to Lay Off at Least 11 Officials

At least 11 high-ranking officials on the city staff, including police and public works administrators, soon will be jobless.

City Council members this week unanimously voted to eliminate their positions in an effort to help balance the city’s budget. The layoffs will save the city about $500,000.

City officials last month discovered that the city is facing an additional $238,000 shortfall in this fiscal year’s budget of $15.4 million and a $1-million deficit in the 1994-95 budget, which is estimated at $15 million.

The decision to lay off a police captain and a communications supervisor and eliminate a lieutenant’s position and a sergeant’s post, which are both vacant, made residents angry. “When someone comes into your house with rape on their mind, who are you going to call?” resident Ted Hill asked the City Council at its meeting Monday night. “You keep cutting down our police force and we will have more crime.”

But the council said it will hire four patrol officers and is seeking funding for four more.

Even so, police said the city will suffer without administrators on the force. They recommended that the council instead keep the captain and sergeant’s posts, eliminate the other two, and hire two patrol officers rather than four.

The captain to be laid off has worked for the city for 28 years. Police pleaded with the council to reconsider eliminating his job.

“I really believe that public safety is a No. 1 issue,” Councilwoman Cecilia L. Age said. But “it’s important that we hire more police officers. It’s the cop on the street that is going to deter crime, not the one sitting behind the desk.”

The rest of the council agreed with Age.

Other employees to be laid off on June 30 include one administrative analyst each from the Public Work and Parks and Recreation departments and two associate planners from the Planning Department. The position of assistant city manager, which is vacant, will be eliminated as well.

In addition, the city plans to either eliminate or lay off one or more high-ranking officials from the Finance Department.

Council members said the job cuts are necessary because the city is in a budget crisis.

Regarding the police captain who will be laid off, Mayor Richard Partin said: “We have no choice in the matter. . . . We are trying to do our very best.”

Still, police officers who have been at odds with the city over contract and salary disputes for two years, said they plan to picket City Hall. They said they have not ruled out waging a campaign against the council members at election time as well.