Lancaster Crime Fighter Moves On

The Los Angeles County prosecutor who introduced a number of controversial crime-fighting programs in Lancaster is leaving the city because funding for his position has expired.

As a specially designated “community prosecutor,” David Berger took a desk at the local sheriff’s station in February 2002 and focused solely on such problems as prostitution and narcotics.

Last year, Berger raised concerns among civil libertarians when he crafted a plan that would have prohibited parolees and probationers from entering one of the city’s most crime-ridden neighborhoods. He also suggested charging landlords a yearly fee of $95 per unit to fund new police jobs to patrol rental areas, an idea that brought complaints from the local Realtors’ association.

Both plans were modified to address critics’ concerns before being approved by Lancaster’s City Council.

Councilman Jim Jeffra said he respected Berger’s hard-charging style.

“He’s done an unbelievably good job,” said Jeffra. “He is going to be sorely missed.”

Berger’s position was initially funded with a federal Department of Justice grant, but that money expired about nine months ago, he said. Since then, the cash-strapped Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has offered to let the city fund the position, but Lancaster officials declined, said Donna Wills, head deputy for the D.A.’s community prosecution division. Jeffra noted that the city was facing budget problems of its own.

As a result, Berger will be moved to the major frauds division in downtown Los Angeles in June.

“We’re being forced to reassign [deputy] district attorneys to our highest-priority programs,” said John Bernardi, director of the D.A.’s Prosecution Support Bureau.

The move comes after a record year for homicides in the Antelope Valley, which includes Lancaster, neighboring Palmdale and a handful of other Mojave Desert cities. In 2003, the area reported 43 homicides, up from 26 in 2002. As many as half were gang-related, officials said. There have been 11 homicides so far this year.

Although Berger did not handle homicides directly, he took broader aim at the culture of crime that he believed was spawning serious felonies.

Much of his focus was on neighborhoods where cheap rents and subsidized housing were attracting criminal types -- some of whom were new arrivals from the Los Angeles area, he said.

Berger’s focus on fighting crime around rental properties led to Lancaster’s recent hiring of eight officers to deal with quality-of-life issues around troubled apartments and rental homes.

But in April, voters rejected a ballot measure he supported that would have imposed a special property tax to hire 10 extra officers.

Officials with the district attorney’s office have promised the city that the programs Berger instituted would continue with the help of deputy district attorneys who work out of the local courthouse, City Manager James Gilley said.

But Earl Vincent, an independent consultant who helped design Berger’s position for the D.A.’s office, said some of the programs will “become less effective” without a prosecutor especially dedicated to them.