Police Force Bounces Back From Brink of Extinction

Three years ago, fiercely independent Port Hueneme almost became a city without a police department.

The financially squeezed municipality considered disbanding its police force and contracting for law enforcement services with the Sheriff’s Department or Oxnard to pare $522,000 a year from its $2.2-million annual law enforcement budget.

Two officers from the 21-member department were laid off. Detectives found themselves on patrol rather than conducting investigations. And the narcotics unit was disbanded.

But a utility tax--instituted by the City Council after the narrow defeat of a measure that would have provided money for police--is providing a degree of financial stability. Staffing levels at the county’s smallest Police Department are poised to rise. A high-visibility bicycle patrol has begun.

The upswing in financial fortune has Police Chief John Hopkins, 52, again planning for his postponed retirement.

“I wanted to see the department back on its feet,” he said. “I expect this time next year I won’t be here and I expect us to be well into our full staff by then.”

Although questions now have arisen over whether the utility tax is legal, most observers believe the department is on the upswing.

The Police Department’s brush with extinction is more than just a recitation of dry statistics and dollar figures, political machinations and cold business decisions.

The department’s survival is linked to emotions rather than business sense, city officials, residents and police agree. What’s more, they say, that reasoning makes perfect sense for Port Hueneme.

Officer Jim Evans--one of the two cops laid off in December 1992--credits the department’s “Mayberry mentality.”

“I think it has ‘the community comes first, take care of them and they will take care of you’ attitude,” said Evans, who joined the Oxnard force. “I think that’s what saved the department.”

Chronically short of money, the city of Port Hueneme has a low tax base and little room to grow. Creative efforts to generate money for services have dominated municipal politics in the last few years. By necessity, government has shrunk, from 96 employees 20 years ago to fewer than 80 today, City Manager John Velthoen said.

The city’s always shaky financial status worsened when the state propped up its own finances by appropriating money that municipalities traditionally received. In response, Port Hueneme raised taxes, gutted such services as parks and recreation, laid off the two officers and explored contracting for police services.

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It wasn’t the first time.

Dennis Fitzgerald, who joined the department as a reservist in 1965, had seen wages frozen, staff eliminated and the possibility the city would contract for police services back then.

Sgt. Ken Dobbe notes that the contracting issue arose again in 1978, a year after he joined the force. Dobbe went so far as to take a physical for the Sheriff’s Department before the City Council abandoned the idea, he recalled.

When contracting was resurrected in 1993, morale plummeted.

“It was demoralizing to not know whether the department you’re working for was going to be existing,” said Dobbe, president of the Port Hueneme Police Officers Assn. for the last 12 years.

By April 1994, Fitzgerald had tired of what he called a “roller-coaster ride.” The department was perpetually understaffed and overworked and it seemed that financial difficulties surfaced every few years, he said. The 20-year department veteran became an investigator with the district attorney’s office.

“Basically the department was disintegrating, and I didn’t particularly want to be a part of it,” Fitzgerald said. “I was, quite frankly, concerned about the consequences for my future. I had no control and I wanted some control.”

The political atmosphere played a role in his decision.

Facing more budget cuts, in November 1993 the council asked voters to approve an estimated additional $500,000 a year in property taxes to retain the department and restore it to full strength. Measure Z, as it was known, required a two-thirds margin of approval.

However, other political conflicts were wracking the city. Velthoen came under fire for ostensibly wielding too much power. Residents railed against a proposed assessment district intended to raise more money. And a nasty fight ensued over a controversial beachfront recreational vehicle park the city wanted to build to increase income.

That issue emerged as the focus of the fall municipal election, where a record number of candidates contested three of the five council seats.

The uncertain political environment didn’t constitute the supportive backdrop desired to build a consensus for Measure Z, which was on the June 1994 ballot.

“It was a very divisive time for the city of Port Hueneme,” said Tony Volante, who ran the fund-raising efforts for the grass-roots Save Our Port Hueneme Police Department that backed the measure and who was subsequently elected to a council seat.

Many taxpayers rallied around the Police Department.

Residents peddled hot dogs and T-shirts to finance the campaign. Dozens of canary-yellow signs lined Hueneme Road, urging a “yes” vote.

Volante was asked to raise $1,500. The group raised $35,000.

The breadth and fervor of the sentiment took the city and department aback. Campaign meetings assumed the tenor of religious revivals as residents rose to testify how police had saved the lives of family members.

“I think these folks really got an eye-opener with Measure Z,” Hopkins said. “To this day you can walk in here and there’ll be a batch of cookies sitting on the table, people thinking about us.”

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The reason for the backing is simple, believes Valorie Morrison, who led the grass-roots effort.

“We’re spoiled,” she said. “When people fall out of bed, they help them get back into bed. You don’t get that with other police departments. . . . We’re not putting down the sheriff. We’re only holding up our own as the best.”

Measure Z ultimately failed--by 65 votes. But many saw the margin as a victory rather than defeat.

A few months later, the council voted to implement a utility tax projected to generate the same amount of money as Measure Z would have.

“I felt that it was a mandate of the people, that 65% of the people wanted to retain our Police Department,” Volante said.

Estimated to swell municipal coffers by about $500,000 annually, the tax instead is bringing in closer to $700,000, Finance Director Jim Hanks said.

As a result, the department’s annual budget has climbed by more than $450,000 to almost $2.8 million. Last July, the chief reinstated a lieutenant’s position that disappeared during the cuts. Another officer and dispatcher will soon be hired, returning the force to pre-cut staffing levels. The canine program, allowed to lapse because of the staffing shortage, will be restored.

The injection of money lasted from March until December 1995. That’s when a California Supreme Court decision essentially said state law requires voter approval of tax increases.

The city still collects utility taxes, holding the money in reserve while waiting for the Legislature to act. A pending bill would free cities that adopted tax increases before the ruling from being forced to go to voters.

Without a resolution by the end of the fiscal year June 30, the city could temporarily tap its reserves to maintain the department’s budget.

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Further clouding the issue is Port Hueneme’s possible switch in status from general law to charter city, which would exempt it from such state laws. A draft charter is complete and the council will decide after a June public hearing whether to place it on the November ballot.

“We don’t know frankly exactly what to do at this point,” Velthoen said. “We’re not spending it. What if we have to give it back?”

Putting a utility tax on the November ballot is another option. That prospect doesn’t faze city officials and Measure Z supporters, given voters’ demonstrated support for police. Passage of a utility tax, via a special-assessment district, would require a simple majority rather than the two-thirds vote Measure Z needed.

“Even the people who are anti-tax are pro-Port Hueneme police,” Morrison said. “I wouldn’t have any bad feelings about starting a new campaign to get a utility tax on the ballot if we had to.”

For now, it’s business as usual at the department.

Arrests, citations and car mileage are up dramatically, Dobbe said, proof that motivation and morale have returned. Turnover among officers is almost nonexistent. Equipment, such as stun guns and portable radios, is being upgraded.

Although talk of full-scale contracting has dissipated, Hopkins believes countywide crime support and administrative functions are inevitable in the years ahead. But the city must have its own beat cops to continue the personalized service residents demand, he said.

From a management perspective, Port Hueneme’s limited resources should dictate contracting as the logical choice, officials acknowledge.

But “every local government decision is not strictly a business decision,” Velthoen said. “There is a public perception in Port Hueneme the city needs its own local police department and is better served by that.”

The city’s chief of police agrees that there is little danger of his town succumbing to a bigger-is-better mentality.

“I told the city manager, ‘Look, I don’t want to retire being known as the police chief that disbanded this department,’ ” Hopkins said. “I’ve got a lot of pride in this department.

“But I’ve also told the city manager, ‘If it gets to the point where we’re not doing our job with the community, I’ll be the first to say let’s contract.’ But we haven’t gotten there. And I don’t think we will.”