Funding Poses Major Hurdle for City’s New Police Force : Hawaiian Gardens: Council majority favors ultility tax to pay for officers and equipment. Patrols by Sheriff’s Department are scheduled to end in February.

Hawaiian Gardens officials are moving ahead with plans to set up the city’s own police force.

Since the City Council voted in September to create a police department, officials have selected a chief, and city staffers have ordered patrol cars, radios, computers and guns. Officials are recruiting 19 officers. A commercial building on Carson Street is being converted into a police station.

Now the city has to find the money to pay for it all.

City officials estimate that it will cost $900,000 to start a police department and that annual operating costs will total $2.2 million. The city now pays $1.5 million a year to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to provide law enforcement.

Three of the five City Council members favor a 6% tax on residential utility bills and an 8% tax on business utility bills to pay for the department, which is scheduled take over law enforcement duties in February.

The three--Mayor Kathleen Navejas and Councilmen Robert Canada and Robert Prida--say a local police force will be able to protect residents and businesses better than the Sheriff’s Department can. They also believe most residents are willing to pay higher taxes for improved law enforcement.

But opponents say that the city, which has a $4.4-million budget, already is spending more money than it gets and that the utility tax will not generate enough revenue. The city had a $1.9-million surplus 18 months ago, but that was gobbled up last year by deficit spending, according to budget documents.

“We simply can’t afford it,” said Councilman Domenic Ruggeri. He and Councilman Lupe Cabrera oppose the tax.

Navejas says the city is not as bad off as Ruggeri makes it sound. She points out, for example, that the council has slashed $500,000 in spending.

The utility tax, which is likely to come up for a vote in January, could generate between $750,000 and $1 million a year, all of which would go toward law enforcement, Navejas said. The tax is expected to cost the typical household about $6 a month.

But Ruggeri said the utility tax will bring in only $300,000 to $400,000 a year because many residents are eligible for exemptions granted to senior citizens or low-income residents.

“It sounds so romantic to have our own police department, but I think we’re making a big mistake,” Ruggeri said.

Navejas shrugged off the critics.

“They’re my political opponents,” she said. “They oppose everything I do. I believe we can afford the department if we adopt the utility tax.”

If the plan is carried out, Hawaiian Gardens will be the first city in Los Angeles County to form its own police department since Bell Gardens did so in 1970, according to Lt. Margaret Cheney of the sheriff’s contract law enforcement bureau.

Navejas said the council is only responding to the wishes of Hawaiian Gardens residents. About 73% of those who responded to a city survey said they favored a city police department, while 63% favored a utility tax to pay for it. The survey was sent to all 4,047 households in the city, which is slightly under one square mile. The city received 539 responses.

Although buoyed by the results, Navejas, Canada and Prida are not rushing to approve the tax. Officials are holding a series of weekly town hall meetings to explain plans for the police department and proposed tax.

“For what we pay the Sheriff’s Department, we get very little service,” Navejas said at last week’s meeting, held at a senior citizens apartment complex. “For just a little bit more money, we can provide the service you deserve.”

She went a further in a recent city newsletter.

“Too many times have people been hurt or maligned because an overburdened and understaffed sheriff did not respond to a call in time,” she said.

Her remarks rankled Lakewood Sheriff’s Station Cmdr. Frank Vadurro, who defended the department’s performance in Hawaiian Gardens.

“It’s an affront to the men and women who have been working hard and risking their lives to protect the citizens of Hawaiian Gardens,” he said of Navejas’ comments.

Vadurro said his station’s average response time to 2,236 emergency calls in Hawaiian Gardens in 1993 was 3.7 minutes. “That’s hardly an agency that’s overburdened,” he said. Moreover, he said, violent crime in Hawaiian Gardens dropped 5.4% in 1993 and 12.4% in the first eight months of this year compared with the same period in 1993.

But Walter McKinney, who has been selected as the city’s first police chief, said the proposed city department would have more officers on patrol than the Sheriff’s Department and would be more effective by identifying and responding to potential problems instead of responding only to calls.

The Lakewood Sheriff’s Station currently assigns 12 deputies to each eight-hour shift patrolling Hawaiian Gardens, Artesia, Lakewood and Bellflower. Hawaiian Gardens officials said there are times now when no one is patrolling their city.