Tax hike measure gaining backers on City Council

Nearly half of the Los Angeles City Council pushed Friday to resurrect a plan for sending voters a $30-million property tax hike to pay for anti-gang programs -- a move quickly denounced by City Controller Laura Chick as poorly conceived and premature.

Six council members signed on to a proposal from Councilwoman Janice Hahn to draft a measure for the Feb. 5 presidential primary election that would raise property taxes by roughly $40 per year for each parcel of land.

Chick argued that the council should hold off until she comes back with a report on how the city could make its anti-gang programs more effective -- a document that won’t be ready until January or February.

“I don’t understand how we ask the public to put more money into our existing efforts until we ask and answer the questions: How are we doing, and how can we do it better?” she said.

Hahn defended the tax proposal, saying it would be modeled after Proposition O, the $500-million water cleanup bond that is supervised by a panel of experts that determines which programs are eligible for city funds. If voters pass the measure, the city wouldn’t receive the new property tax revenue until November 2008 -- more than enough time for Chick’s recommendations to be implemented, Hahn said.

“This will be different,” Hahn said. “Programs will not be funded unless they’re proven to have been successful in keeping our kids from joining gangs, in getting them jobs and keeping them in school.”

Hahn offered the proposal, which will need 10 council votes to reach the ballot, just as the city is trying to assess its various anti-gang programs, from L.A.’s Best after-school activities to L.A. Bridges, which works to keep some children from joining gangs.

In May, a 30-year-old job administrator at a San Fernando Valley anti-gang program was sentenced to nearly three years in prison for transporting methamphetamine and for being a felon in possession of a firearm. Days later, agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested Hector Marroquin, founder of the anti-gang program No Guns, on suspicion of selling a machine gun and other weapons to undercover officers.

No Guns received $1.5 million in city funding before its contract was terminated.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who hired a gang czar two months ago, said Friday that he wants to see more details surrounding the proposed tax. Chick, who received $500,000 from the council to review various anti-gang initiatives, agreed that gang programs need more money but said $30 million may be too low.

“We’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the years to prevent gang violence and we’ve failed,” she said. “And that’s exactly why I’ve been chomping at the bit . . . to begin a major evaluation of the city’s anti-gang efforts.”

The council has also paid the Advancement Project, a nonprofit group headed by civil rights attorney Connie Rice, nearly $600,000 to evaluate the city’s gang prevention and intervention programs. The report concluded that Los Angeles needs a Marshall Plan -- one that could cost up to $1 billion -- to deliver comprehensive services to children in low-income neighborhoods.

In one section of her report, Rice said the South Los Angeles neighborhood served by Manual Arts High School, as well as all the elementary and middle schools that feed into it, would need $55 million to keep all of its pupils away from gangs.

Hahn originally pushed for a $50-million tax proposal in January, weeks after a 14-year-old girl was gunned down in the Harbor Gateway area of Los Angeles while playing with her friends. But in recent weeks, Hahn and her allies decided to reduce the proposal to $30 million after a private poll found that the lower number would be an easier sell to voters.

Councilman Bill Rosendahl embraced the measure, saying it would force the presidential candidates campaigning in California to address the issue of gang violence. He also dismissed the notion that the council should wait another year to pursue a tax. “There is so much talk, talk talk,” he said. “This is real action.”

But Councilman Dennis Zine complained that property owners have already seen a dramatic hike in their trash fees, a move designed to pay for 1,000 more police officers.

“We need to analyze everything we’ve got before we ask for more,” he said.

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david.zahniser@latimes.com