Testy L.A. Council Puts Police Tax Hike to Rest

After an angry and personal debate Friday, Los Angeles City Council members voted for a second time this week to kill a proposal to put a measure on the May ballot that would ask voters to raise the city sales tax to hire 1,200 more police officers.

The council’s decision severely constrains the options for adding officers to the Los Angeles Police Department next year, an expansion almost every elected official in Los Angeles has said is a priority.

Despite hours of lobbying and arm-twisting by Police Chief William J. Bratton and Mayor James K. Hahn’s top aides, the council’s vote on the issue was identical to Wednesday’s vote, with nine council members in favor and six opposed.

The matter came up again for a vote because the council was not able to muster enough votes Wednesday to either approve it, which required 10, or put it to rest completely, which required eight votes. Friday was the last day to put the measure on the May 17 ballot.

Two of those opposed, Antonio Villaraigosa and Bernard C. Parks, are also waging campaigns to unseat the mayor, leading to a week of charges that the police tax had become a political issue. The other four council members who voted against the plan were council President Alex Padilla, Greig Smith, Jack Weiss and Dennis Zine.

On Friday, tensions between the members erupted.

“A few of you have mentioned mayoral politics,” Villaraigosa said. “You’re right. It is about mayoral politics. It’s about four years of failed leadership in this city.”

Hahn, who is running for reelection, defeated Villaraigosa for the city’s top job in 2001.

Councilwoman Janice Hahn, the mayor’s sister, said, “Antonio, you can keep your crappy speeches for the candidate debates.”

Villaraigosa later said that he found the councilwoman’s comments “pathetic.”

Mayor Hahn, who held an angry news conference after Wednesday’s vote, issued a statement Friday. “I am angered and disappointed that a minority of the council, who all trusted the voters of this city to elect them to office, chose not to trust the voters with this crucial decision,” he said.

The debate capped one of the most contentious weeks in recent memory at City Hall as the mayor and several council members made a last-ditch effort to win over holdout council members.

Hahn, who faces an election in less than four weeks, has staked his campaign on his record on crime. In addition to Villaraigosa and Parks, he faces two other leading candidates, former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg and state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sun Valley).

The police chief had warned Wednesday that without more officers, Los Angeles risked “going up in flames” because of tensions between outraged community members and an overburdened police department.

On Friday, Bratton said, “I have committed to you that we in the LAPD would get crime down 50% in three years. I’m asking to be given that opportunity.”

If approved by two-thirds of voters, the measure would have raised the sales tax in Los Angeles from 8.25% to 8.75%. Officials conceived the plan for the city-only measure after voters rejected a countywide plan in November.

Council members opposed to the measure offered a number of reasons, among them that it is too soon to take another sales tax measure before voters after they rejected the countywide measure and that it would drive business out of Los Angeles to raise the sales tax in the city but not the surrounding areas of the county.

“Put it on the ballot and lose, and it hurts our chances in 2006,” said Padilla, adding that it “breaks my heart. I know how much we need it.”

Those in favor have said the need for more police is urgent, and the voters should be given the chance to decide whether they want to pay higher taxes for more officers.

“I can’t tell them, Dennis, Antonio, Alex, why we’re not letting them vote,” said Janice Hahn. “You need to tell them what your plan is to hire 1,200 more officers.”

After the measure was voted down Wednesday, the mayor, his voice shaking with fury, suggested that voters consider recalling Weiss and Villaraigosa. He singled them out because their districts had supported the countywide police tax by more than the needed two-thirds vote. He also called opponents “incredibly arrogant.”

Those comments angered some council members.

“It’s political, but it shouldn’t get personal,” said Zine, who has endorsed Hahn’s reelection but now said the mayor “shouldn’t take anything for granted.”

“I was very offended by that,” said Smith, saying he still backed Hahn but adding that the remarks by the mayor and some of his allies were “totally uncalled for.”

Smith has pushed a plan, which council members approved this week, to use money owed to the city by the state to hire more than 260 officers and pay their salaries over the next four years.

In a statement issued Friday, Hahn said measures such as that were “simply not enough.”