Council Runoff Candidates Echo the Crime Issue

One candidate’s brochures feature a stark black-and-white photo of a loaded gun pointed straight out, as if aimed between the eyes of the reader. The message, emblazoned in blood-red, states: “Too many families have lived with the horror of violent crime.”

The claim on the other candidate’s glossy mailers: “Only one candidate for City Council has a specific plan for fighting crime.” The word crime is spray-painted in capital letters on a redbrick wall.

The message is clear: The key issue in the race for the 5th District City Council seat is crime, the one topic that cuts across all ethnic and socioeconomic lines, striking a nerve with nearly every voter in Los Angeles.

As candidates Mike Feuer and Barbara Yaroslavsky square off in the June 6 runoff, both have tried to tap voters’ anxiety by using speeches and campaign literature to promote their ideas for combatting crime.

Feuer, the former director of a legal-service clinic, has proposed, among other ideas, the establishment of dozens of police substations throughout the city and staffing them with reserve officers who undergo the same training as traditional officers but earn only a $15 monthly stipend.

Yaroslavsky, a community volunteer and wife of county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, wants to offer the youth of Los Angeles an alternative to a life of gangs and crime by opening all school campuses after-hours and on weekends, thus providing sites where volunteers can offer recreational and educational programs. She also proposes expanding city library and park hours, among other ideas aimed at reducing crime.

Both proposals have some merit. But according to police and educators, neither idea is novel and both face significant financial and practical problems.

While the candidates acknowledge that their proposals require financial assistance and a new army of community volunteers, they stand by their ideas.

“This is not pie in the sky,” Feuer said. “It’s attainable.”

Feuer teamed with Dennis Perluss, former counsel to the Christopher Commission, to draft a plan to open more community police substations, thereby providing additional facilities to relieve overcrowded police stations while adding a visible crime deterrent to neighborhoods.

Under his plan, the substations would be established in existing commercial space donated by businesses to police. The facilities would provide computers, phones and desks so officers could complete nearly all traditional police work without having to drive long miles to their headquarters. To cut down on staffing costs, Feuer proposes using reserve officers to take complaints and file reports, freeing police to patrol the streets.

The idea of decentralizing the police force by assigning more officers to substations has strong support in the Los Angeles Police Department. It was one of the ideas put forward in the Christopher Commission as a key component of the so-called “community-based policing” strategy designed to make residents a partner in the Police Department’s crime-fighting efforts.

But there are hurdles to implementing such an idea.

The Police Department has 624 civilian reserve officers, most of whom have full-time jobs and volunteer for at least two eight-hour shifts per month. Of those, 358 reserve officers have been trained at the Los Angeles Police Academy to carry guns and work in patrol cars. The remaining 266 so-called “technical reserves” do not carry weapons but can work station assignments, freeing regular officers for patrols.

In staffing a substation, police say it is important to provide regular hours of service and have the same officers work regular shifts to provide the neighborhood with continuity and stability.

But because most volunteers on the current reserve force work full-time jobs elsewhere, many can only work weekend or evening shifts, police administrators said.

“You don’t want a new face in the substation every day,” said Police Lt. Dan Hoffman, the adjutant in the San Fernando Valley Bureau. “There are not very many people who would want to volunteer five days a week. They are out there, but they are not knocking down our doors.”

Feuer acknowledges glitches in his idea but said he would like to see the reserve program expanded to attract more people who don’t have full-time jobs, such as homemakers and retirees.

“There is no question that I am advocating expanding the program,” he said. “I’m talking about an idea that’s new.”

Another potential obstacle is the capacity of the Police Academy to train reserve officers. It takes nine months to train reserves who are qualified to carry a gun. The academy cannot dramatically increase the number of reserve officers it trains without disrupting the training of new full-time officers, which city officials agree is a top priority.

For instance, reserve training officials said there is a limited amount of time available at the academy’s shooting range. Also, the department’s two investigators who complete background checks on reserve officer candidates are already working long hours.

Still, Police Commissioner Gary Greenebaum said he likes Feuer’s idea. But he said a substation staffed by reserve volunteers can only be established when there is strong community support and commitment.

Yaroslavsky, a longtime school volunteer, also supports increasing police presence on the streets. But she has also long emphasized the idea of opening school campuses after hours and on weekends as sites for recreational and educational program for youngsters.

School officials support the idea. In fact, before Proposition 13 dramatically cut property tax funding in 1978, such after-hour programs were offered at nearly every school in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

But because of funding shortages, the school district only provides supervised after-hours playtime at its 475 elementary and middle schools, said Jim Sugahara, a district administrator. The district’s 49 high schools are closed after hours to all but school athletic programs or special groups that rent campus space for athletic programs, he said.

If volunteers agree to provide supervision for youth programs, the only cost to keeping schools open would be incurred by maintenance crews who would clean restrooms and other facilities, school officials said.

The cost of opening all high schools after hours and on weekends could be as much as $10 million annually, Sugahara said. “It does take money,” he said.

But finding volunteers willing to spend the time and money to run youth programs can also be a problem. While parents’ participation is high at many schools, there is almost no participation in schools that need the programs most, educators said.

“We would be pleased to open every one of our schools. There is no philosophical problem,” school board President Mark Slavkin said. “All it takes is the will of the people in the community. It takes some responsible adults to be there and take responsibility.”

Yaroslavsky said her idea is feasible and necessary. “When I walk around neighborhoods, I see kids with ripped pants from jumping over the fence to play at playgrounds,” she said.

As for recruiting volunteers and raising money for such programs, Yaroslavsky said she wants city leaders to encourage more volunteerism and proposes more partnerships between government and private companies to pay for the costs.

“The mechanics of how it’s going to get done is easy,” she said. “But the mind-set has to be to just do it.”