D. A., Sheriff to Join Petition Drive Effort

Two top Ventura County law enforcement officials will join three county supervisors Tuesday in launching a petition drive to ensure that sales tax dollars from Proposition 172 are spent fighting crime and fires.

The announcement will be made at a 12:15 p.m. press conference at the Ventura County Hall of Justice, said Steve Frank, a spokesman with Citizens for a Safe Ventura County.

Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury and Sheriff Larry Carpenter are scheduled to speak in support of the petition drive, along with Supervisors John Flynn, Judy Mikels and Frank Schillo.

The citizens’ group is leading the petition drive to place an initiative before voters prohibiting county supervisors from spending Proposition 172 money on anything but public safety, Frank said.

“This would close the loophole on 172, which allows public safety money to be spent elsewhere,” Frank said. “There are no guarantees in 172 that the money has to be spent on public safety.”

The group needs to garner 18,750 signatures from voters to qualify for the June, 1996, ballot or more than 37,000 signatures to force a special election.

The petition drive was born after supervisors last year directed more than $1 million of the $28 million raised by Proposition 172 to departments outside public safety. The supervisors also left about $4 million undesignated.

Flynn opposed the move last year, and Mikels and Schillo are newly elected to the board.

Proposition 172 was passed by voters in 1993 and called for an extension of a half-cent sales tax that was to expire Jan. 1, 1994. It stipulated that the extra money would fund public safety programs.