Union Disputes Cost of Policing New Valley City

Stepping up its campaign against San Fernando Valley secession, the Los Angeles police union criticized the county Sheriff’s Department on Tuesday as a mismanaged agency that cannot meet a budget and therefore is in no position to take over policing of a new city.

In a letter to Valley cityhood campaign leader Richard Katz, Police Protective League President Mitzi Grasso went on the attack against the Sheriff’s Department, which once estimated that it could police the Valley for $100 million less than it costs the LAPD.

Grasso noted that the Sheriff’s Department last year faced a shortfall of $25.3 million in its budget of about $1.5 billion.

“Current county budget negotiations have revealed a department that either continually underbids actual cost for service or seriously mismanages its allocated budget,” Grasso wrote.

In his own letter, Katz responded: “It’s too bad that fearmongering passes as business as usual with the downtown power elite.”

Grasso said the Sheriff’s Department has repeatedly come under fire for wasteful spending.

“The Sheriff’s Department can’t operate within its budget today--the public shouldn’t expect them to fulfill their promises tomorrow,” Grasso wrote to Katz, who co-chairs the San Fernando Valley Independence Committee.

Secession leaders view the union’s attack on the Sheriff’s Department as misguided.

They are hoping to work out a contract with the Los Angeles Police Department to continue policing the Valley, though bringing in the Sheriff’s Department remains an option.

“No one has made any commitment,” Katz said.

Secession leaders have said another option would be for a Valley city to form a police department.

“[The police union is] choosing to discredit the Sheriff’s Department and that is unfortunate, because both agencies have jobs to do,” Katz said.

Sheriff’s Capt. Ray Leyva said the criticism is unfounded.

“It’s not so much that we are over budget, it’s that we are being underfunded,” Leyva said. “They [the police union] are doing what they have to do to keep their department in place, and we are a good target.”

Leyva said the estimated $100 million in savings was not part of an official proposal or study, but was based on what the department spends serving 32 contract cities that, if combined, equal the Valley’s population of 1.35 million.

“We have not done a comprehensive study,” he said.

Grasso, in her letter to Katz, accused secession leaders of misinforming the public by claiming that police services would improve without tax increases after the breakup of Los Angeles.

“We ask that you cease your barrage of promises and untruths on this issue, and instead give residents the real picture of what policing post-secession will be like: an incomplete force and a bigger financial burden,” Grasso wrote.

Katz responded that the Valley still has not gotten a sixth police station promised more than 10 years ago and gets only half the police protection received by the rest of the city.

“We are confident that police protection in the Valley and throughout Los Angeles will only be improved under an independent city government, and hope that you will stop using manipulative scare tactics to deceive the public.”