Laguna Beach, Irvine to Add Officers With $400,000 Grant

Irvine and Laguna Beach will receive nearly $400,000 in federal grants to hire five new police officers under a Clinton administration program to beef up the ranks of street cops nationwide.

The announcement was made this week during the 15th Annual National Peace Officers Memorial Service in Washington, D.C.

Irvine Police Chief Charles Brobeck, whose department will receive $300,000 to pay for four new officers over a three-year period, said he returned from a City Council meeting to find a voice mail message from U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer saying the money was approved.

“I was surprised because of the fact that we already received some money last year,” Brobeck said. “We figured we got our share, and we’re not going to see much more.”

Laguna Beach police will receive $75,000 to help pay for one police officer over a three-year period.

The Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants are part of a $604 million federal effort to subsidize 8,900 additional police officers in 2,500 jurisdictions. Los Angeles received $53.2 million to offset the cost of 710 new officers.

So far, the Clinton administration has helped finance the hiring of 43,000 officers, almost half the president’s goal of putting 100,000 cops on the street by the year 2000. Last year, about 50 officers were hired in Orange County by 12 agencies as a result of COPS grants designated by the 1994 federal crime bill.

In Irvine, the grant will pay for about 25% of the new officers’ salaries and benefits, which amount to about $100,000 each per year, Police Lt. Pat Rodgers said. The officers are scheduled to be on the streets by July 10, boosting the total number of sworn officers in the city to 138, Rodgers said.

Laguna Beach Police Chief Neil Purcell said he was “shocked” that his department’s grant application was accepted because of the city’s relatively peaceful reputation. Purcell said he asserted in the grant application that community policing should be beefed up before crime becomes a real threat to the seaside community.

Laguna police also received a $49,000 federal grant for a dictation system that allows officers to dictate reports from any phone. The dictation service then faxes the written report to the office for a supervisor’s approval.

“Instead of having officers spend time on computers and typing and coming to the station, we will contract with a private dictation center,” Purcell said.