Police Bond Issue Falling Short of Two-Thirds Vote

With more than half of the votes tallied Tuesday, Proposition 1, the $171-million bond issue was falling short of the two-thirds majority needed to raise property taxes for the construction of new police facilities, including a sixth San Fernando Valley police station.

Early returns showed the bond measure winning well over 50% of the vote but not enough to clear the two-thirds hurdle required by the state Constitution. Political observers said the ballot proposal suffered from a low turnout at the polls and strong skepticism that the measure would actually produce all the projects it called for. A similar bond issue passed six years ago has been plagued with problems.

In another police-related ballot measure, a charter amendment designed to reform police disciplinary procedures appeared headed for approval. Among its provisions, Charter Amendment 2, which generated no formal opposition, allows officers to receive pay while on leave during misconduct investigations and streamlines the hearing process for officers when complaints are filed.

City Councilman Richard Alarcon, who spearheaded the drive to put Proposition 1 on the ballot, conceded that the bond measure was facing “an uphill battle.”

But he stressed that “it’s not a lack of confidence vote,” given the tally of more than a simple majority of the vote.

Alarcon credited the Proposition 1 campaign with creating “a tremendous impetus and awareness of the need for new facilities. . . . Voters are very much on board with public safety as an important issue.”

Sherman Oaks attorney Richard Close, who wrote the official argument against the ballot measure, acknowledged that more than half of those voting said yes on Proposition 1.

“I’m not surprised they got that high,” said Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. “But I think a lot of the voters that showed up at the polls had done their research and realized that property tax increases weren’t necessary and that these projects were too big and too expensive and unneeded.”

Close agreed that the police force, whose ranks will be expanded by 600 new officers in the coming year, is in need of more space. But he said the best answer would be “more local substations, not high-rise Taj Mahal buildings.”

The measure had the support of Mayor Richard Riordan, Police Chief Willie L. Williams and, in a twist, more than a dozen Valley homeowner groups, which traditionally oppose higher taxes. But pundits said the super-majority requirement was too great a handicap to overcome, even for a measure that supporters argued would cut down on crime, one of the biggest concerns of residents across the city.

“This is not an issue that’ll drive you to the polls,” said political consultant Richard Lichtenstein.

Proposition 1 would have increased the average homeowner’s property tax by about $9 annually for the next 20 years. The money would have subsidized construction of new police stations in the mid-Valley and mid-Wilshire districts, replacement stations in the Hollenbeck and Rampart divisions and three new parking structures.

From the start, the measure was dogged by the embarrassing legacy of a similar bond issue, passed in 1989, which produced only a handful of the police facilities voters approved in the $176-million measure. Although they began with an ambitious slate of 32 projects, police and city officials later admitted that they had vastly underestimated costs and halved the list.

An internal city review blamed the slow pace of construction on a lack of expertise in the Los Angeles Police Department and a sprawling city bureaucracy where projects frequently got lost. “No one knows the entire system or how it all fits together,” the report said.