Baca Notes Successes, Concedes Missteps in First Year on Job

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca marked his first year in office Tuesday by listing many accomplishments, but acknowledging that he erred in issuing guns to members of his controversial celebrity reserve unit.

Two weeks ago, Baca suspended the program after a second reservist was arrested, this time on federal money-laundering charges.

“If I were going to whack myself for something that I probably moved too quickly with, it would probably be that,” Baca told reporters gathered for a news conference at department headquarters.

Baca said department officials are reevaluating the unit--which included 20 influential but little known private citizens. He said that if he revives the program, he will not reissue the guns. “It wasn’t necessary for [unit members] to have the weapons because I don’t ever anticipate them having to use them,” Baca said.

While acknowledging his mistakes, however, Baca also reviewed a lengthy list of accomplishments. They include opening a jail dedicated to rehabilitating inmates addicted to drugs, starting a deputy leadership institute and providing an intense counseling program for at-risk teenagers and their parents.

Baca--who won more than 60% of the vote in a November 1998 runoff election, becoming Los Angeles County’s first Latino sheriff in this century--also touted the benefits of having a departmental float in the 2000 Rose Parade. Baca said that the massive float will honor law enforcement heroes while providing deputies with the chance to participate in an American institution.

“I remember as a child growing up in East Los Angeles, going to the Rose Parade and seeing all those beautiful floats,” Baca said. “These floats are a vision of what can be. It’s a fantasy, it’s a hope, it’s a dream. . . . We believe this float is an important message.”

Until recently, the department was struggling to pay its bills on the $220,000 project. In October, Baca’s float committee was late paying a $50,000 installment to the float’s builder. But Baca said Tuesday that the fund-raising effort has picked up. Donations now total more than $300,000. “The float is paid for, thank goodness,” he told reporters. “I was sweating it there for a while.”

The float is precisely the sort of initiative--slightly offbeat and deeply personal in origin--that has come to typify Baca’s first year in office.

As head of the county’s 22,000-inmate jail system and boss of about 14,000 employees, he has introduced programs to teach illiterate inmates how to read, put convicted spousal abusers through intense therapy and offer college classes to deputies wishing to pursue higher education.

He said he also has adopted a clear code of conduct prohibiting deputies from engaging in sexism, racism, homophobia and anti-Semitism.

“I want deputies to be creative as well as humanistic,” Baca said Tuesday.

Pasadena Police Chief Bernard K. Melekian described Baca as a “breath of fresh air.”

“He has a lot of interesting and innovative ideas,” Melekian said. “The challenge will be implementing them.”

Indeed, some county officials believe Baca may be taking on too much. Several months ago, county Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen warned Baca that he was overspending his budget by $21 million. Baca responded by saying that he would cut his expenses.

“He is new,” Janssen said. “He moved into a position of tremendous responsibility with a $1.2-billion budget. I think a number of things he did this year, he did without fully understanding the consequences.”

Janssen, however, credited Baca’s willingness to “reverse himself and deal with [problems].”

Baca’s candor regarding the woes facing his celebrity reserve unit surprised some members of his staff. Baca set up the program in June for celebrities, executives, athletes and other notable community members to serve as his kitchen cabinet. As it turned out, no celebrities wanted to join. The unit included a preacher, a filmmaker, a philanthropist, a lawyer and a number of businesspeople.

From the start, there were questions over whether the department should have issued guns and badges to the reserve members. Those questions intensified in September when unit member Scott Zacky, whose family owns Zacky Farms, was accused of brandishing a weapon at two people outside his Bel-Air home. As it turned out, Zacky had a previous weapons conviction, something that went undetected by department officials who rushed the background checks on the applicants for the program.

Two weeks ago, federal officials arrested a second unit member, Elie Abdalnour, on suspicion of laundering about $225,000. Abdalnour, a wealthy Baca supporter who owns Cypress Jewelry Mart Inc., was indicted by a federal grand jury last week. Also charged was his associate, Jirair Tatarian, 29, the co-owner of an Orange County strip club. The men are accused of laundering money they allegedly believed came from proceeds from counterfeit clothing.

Baca said he would like to fix the reserve program because he believes it is important for community leaders from a variety of cultures to participate in the department.

“The key is, how do we fine tune it so we don’t end up with the problems we have had in the past,” Baca said. “I think I can fix it, and I will fix it.”