Police Proposal Will Go to Voters Again : Election: City Council orders a measure for the April ballot that would expand the LAPD by 1,000 officers. The issue lost narrowly in November.
Heartened by the strong showing of a November ballot measure to expand the Police Department by 1,000 officers, the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday took the first step toward returning the issue to the ballot in April.
The council, by a 12-2 vote, asked the city attorney’s office to draft language for a ballot measure that would raise property taxes to hire 1,000 new police officers.
The measure would be identical to Proposition N, which won 63% of the vote in November, short of the two-thirds required for approval.
Councilman Marvin Braude, who asked that the proposal be put back before voters, said support for the measure last month was “phenomenal,†considering that similar proposals got just 42% of the vote in 1981 and 1985. “This gives voters an opportunity to increase from 63% to the required 66%,†Braude said.
The ballot measure would tax the owner of an average 1,500-square-foot home $73 a year to increase the Police Department to 8,900 officers. The force currently stands at 7,800, but would be increased by 100 officers under a budget vote taken by the council last week.
Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky said that with a huge mayoral field in the April primary, voter turnout might be high enough to bring out the votes needed to pass the measure.
“I’m willing to take another chance,†Yaroslavsky said. “What do we have to lose?â€
But Councilman Joel Wachs disagreed, saying turnout will not approach the November national election. The smaller electorate in April is likely to be more conservative and anti-tax, Wachs said.
Only council members Joan Milke Flores, of the harbor area, and Hal Bernson, of the San Fernando Valley, voted against drafting the police ballot measure. Bernson said enough money is already in the city budget, if priorities are reordered, to hire more police officers. Flores said property owners should not be the only ones paying for more police.
“We keep increasing taxes and always on the backs of the property owners,†Flores said, “as if they were the only people in the city and the only people who need police response.â€
The council soundly defeated an alternative police ballot measure by Councilman Michael Woo, who like Wachs is running for mayor.
The council voted 13 to 1 against Woo’s call for a ballot measure that would hire 1,000 new officers through a combination of a smaller tax increase and a reduction in other city services. Woo said the tax increase would be large enough to hire 500 officers, with a requirement that city officials cut other services enough to raise the money to hire another 500.
Woo said such cuts would provide voters undecided on the issue with an “incentive†to support the measure.
But Woo’s colleagues sharply criticized his call for unspecified across-the-board cuts, saying that city government has already been pared to the bone.
Councilman Richard Alatorre referred to calls by Woo for reductions in other city programs as “smoke and mirrors†that distract voters from the need to raise taxes to pay for more services.
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