Sheriff Sticks to His Guns on Sales Tax Plan

As sheriff of Los Angeles County, Lee Baca has earned a reputation for trying to turn criminals around, even as he locks them up.

Sometimes as much social worker as cop, he has pursued projects that included a jail to rehabilitate spousal abusers, counseling programs for troubled kids and a plan to build a homeless shelter near skid row.

Baca has often shimmied out on a limb, undaunted when others did not follow. But last week, he was at the forefront of a dramatic bid to squelch crime that couldn’t have been more mainstream.

As Baca looked on, the Board of Supervisors put the sheriff’s sales tax measure to expand police services on the Nov. 2 ballot. Expected to bring in about $560 million a year, the half-cent increase would raise Baca’s budget by 11% and the Los Angeles Police Department’s by 15%, and it could put up to 5,000 new officers on the county’s streets.

“Lee is sometimes a voice in the wilderness, but sometimes he leads the choir,” said Harvey Englander, a Los Angeles political strategist. “One of the great things about him is there’s never a shortage of ideas. And if an idea doesn’t work, he just moves on to the next one.”

Baca hatched this particular idea back in 2002, just two days after county voters approved a property tax increase to help pay for emergency and trauma care services. He suggested a half-cent sales tax to fund his department, with a third of the proceeds going to trauma care.

The supervisors didn’t buy it. They questioned both the timing and the need.

If you can convince two-thirds of county voters to give the Sheriff’s Department more money, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky told Baca at the time, “you deserve the Pulitzer Prize.”

But Baca, a runner who takes 10-mile morning jogs, kept at it. A year later, he floated the idea again.

This time, he decided, he would bypass the supervisors, collecting voter signatures to propel his plan to the ballot.

With classic Baca quirkiness, he unveiled his campaign for raising the county’s sales tax to 8.75% with the flamboyant help of Won-G, a tattooed Haitian rapper.

“I plan to hit the streets with my Haiti Boys Street Team -- a lot of ‘em rappers, a lot of ‘em promoters -- in 28 Ford Excursions with 27-inch wheels,” Won-G told a local newspaper. “It’s about the half-cent sales tax.”

The spectacle struck some Los Angeles political leaders as ridiculous. Councilman Eric Garcetti and a few other council members signed on to co-chair the campaign, but other leaders, including all five county supervisors, kept their distance.

Baca pressed on. He crisscrossed the county, from one small-town council meeting to another, like a squirrel gathering nuts. He appealed to his rainbow of ethnic advisory councils and soon had Muslim men collecting signatures at mosques, among other efforts.

“I used my political influence that I’ve knitted quietly, under the radar screen,” Baca said. “How did this all happen? It was an army of ants. I pay attention to the people that many others don’t notice.”

By June, he had won endorsements from more than 30 cities. But his voter signature drive, hampered by a shortage of professional signature gatherers, was sputtering.

The sheriff, however, got a little boost from his own budget problems, which zoomed into sharp focus at the county lockups.

After two years of tight budgets amid a slow economy, Baca had to free thousands of low-level offenders to save money. And violence among other inmates escalated; five have been slain in County Jail in recent months -- killings blamed, in part, on inadequate staffing levels.

L.A. City Council President Alex Padilla and other council members began to see the sales tax initiative as a last-ditch hope to hire more law enforcement officers and prepared to put their own proposal before Los Angeles voters if Baca’s measure stumbled. If the city approved a higher tax, that would have complicated efforts to pass a countywide measure.

When it became clear that Baca would probably fail to get the tax hike onto the ballot, Yaroslavsky picked up the phone and offered to help.

“For me, the turning point was the early release of prisoners in the jails,” the supervisor said. He decided that the sheriff had done his part to trim costs.

Yaroslavsky was also impressed by the number of city leaders and police chiefs backing Baca’s measure.

“Frankly, that showed to me that this wasn’t just some flight of fancy on the part of the sheriff,” he said.

For Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton, another supporter, the choice was clear. Like Baca, he had tried and failed to persuade elected officials to give him enough money to hire hundreds of new officers.

“After having gone through the bruising battle last year of trying to hire 320 officers and not getting that, and then getting only 30 this year, this one made sense,” Bratton said. “The battle really was with the Board of Supervisors.”

The lobbying was intense. Padilla and Garcetti feverishly worked the phones, trying to win endorsements from as many cities as possible.

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn, the City Council, Bratton, the Los Angeles County Police Chiefs Assn., Yaroslavsky and the leaders of 32 cities were now on board, many of them helping to redraft the measure to win the needed four votes.

To appease Supervisor Don Knabe, cities would be barred from using the new revenue to simply replace what they were already spending on law enforcement. At Supervisor Gloria Molina’s behest, money was earmarked for crime-prevention programs for youth.

By the time supervisors voted Tuesday, it was already clear that Baca had won over the once-reluctant board. Now, with the help of his powerful alliance, he must take the case to the voters.

Baca said he planned to raise up to $2 million for the effort. His political consultant, Joe Cerrell, has promised a traditional campaign using direct mail, newspapers and television to sway voters. Law enforcement officials like Baca and Bratton will play a prominent role, Yaroslavsky said.

If the measure, which needs a two-thirds majority for passage, is approved, it will be a milestone for Los Angeles law enforcement.

For Baca, who is often overshadowed by the LAPD and its debonair chief, the sales tax campaign could prove a lasting legacy for a maverick determined to use his office as “an instrument of change.”

“How many times have we heard, not just in the county but in the city of Los Angeles, that we need more police officers?” Padilla said. “Nobody’s done more to advance that conversation than Lee Baca.”