Mayor defends efforts to increase size of LAPD

A Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today defended his efforts to increase the size of the Los Angeles Police Department and said he was bracing for a fight against City Council members who want to freeze police hiring to help close the city’s gaping budget shortfall.

Speaking before several hundred members of the city’s many volunteer neighborhood councils, Villaraigosa reviewed the gains the LAPD has made in pushing down crime rates across the city in the last several years. The success, he said, was due in large part to the expansion of the LAPD’s ranks by roughly 800 officers that he has overseen since taking office.

“When there is a threat to your safety, you expect our police officers to be there. This buildup has put us in a position where L.A. is the second safest big city” in the country, he said.

A cornerstone of the mayor’s administration has been his promise to add 1,000 new police to the LAPD, which is generally considered an understaffed force for a city the size of Los Angeles. Over the last several weeks, as budget experts and elected officials have struggled to devise a plan to close an estimated $405-million hole in the city’s general fund, momentum has built in City Council chambers to save some money by halting police hires.

Next week, the council is scheduled to consider a proposal to halt hiring and shut down recruiting efforts until January.

The idea has drawn strong, caustic rebukes from LAPD Chief William J. Bratton in recent days. Today, Villaraigosa took up the aggressive tone. He criticized council members who favor the hiring freeze for reneging on an informal plan to use increased trash collection fees on public safety costs.

The proposed temporary halt on hiring, the mayor warned, could open the door to a more protracted freeze.

“So the debate is on. After we made a commitment to you that if we raised your trash fees we were going to build up our Police Department, there are some who seem to have amnesia. They seem to forget that we made that commitment,” he said. “Let me tell you, I don’t like to fight, but I know how. And I will fight for this police buildup.”

In recent interviews, Council members Greig Smith, Paul Koretz and Jan Perry have called for the freeze on hiring, saying the city’s dire financial situation demands dramatic cost-saving measures. There was no binding agreement to use the trash fees in a particular way, they said.

--Joel Rubin, reporting from City Hall

 

Comments

[Ramonam Gonzales]

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[Ramona]

Oh please! If the general public had ANY idea of the waste going on in the LAPD, they would shut the whole place down! Start by putting all the lazy, able-bodied Sergeants, who are masquerading as Area Adjutants (a job that shoud be held by civilians)back into the field where they belong. And, now that the Consent Decree has been lifted, put all of those officers back into the field too! Then, stop all the cheating regarding overtime, particularly related to Court overtime, and a bundle of money could be saved there as well. One more thing: all "light duty" officers should either be rehabilitated in order to go back into the field, and if they can't be, then they should be offered another job within the City. Why do we continue to pay such high salaries to offciers who are not working as officers? The system is broken folks, let's fix it instead of passing the cost on to others or forcing the civilians to take furlough days. Additionally, how can the LAPD hire more offficers when there is no increase in admin staff (namely civilians) to do the important work behind the scenes - like "running" the Department? One more thing; if everyone else in the City has to take "Furlough days", than so should the police. Give me a break!

[Richard]

I'm sure there are many reduntant and unecessary area's of the Police Department that over time just kinda take on a life of their own until they become a preceived necessity. For instance the mounted patrol really that necessary in a modern police organization, nice for parades,funerals, and public to pet the horses but extremely expensive. Thats one example where manpower could be utilized on the street. In this time of tight budget restraints a total top to bottom review should be made to place officers back on the streets.

[proud cop]

C'mon, the magic 10,000 mark...give me a break. let's start with Fiscal Operations Division, Facilities Management Division and get all the police officers, Sergeants out to the field. Oh yeah, I've seen sergeants assigned in the jail doing nothing. I think as some have mentioned, it's not about how many you hired, it's about where you assign them that counts. There is so much misuse of police officers. Why would you assign them to work the kit room, teach computers , or work as training coordinators, when you could assign civilians to do so. Let's hope whomever the new chief is, he/she will first look at each unit, section and division and ask why police officers are assigned to those non-patrol positions...then will there be some real accountability in the police department. I bet you, if the new chief have some balls, you can get at least 2,000 or so more police officers, sergeants, and others back to the patrol divisions. It's funny, you have to pay a patrol bonus for us (police officers) to be in a patrol division, doing patrol duties. Weren't we all hired to do that very thing? So, why do many hide behind some office?

The mayor is full of himself. Two years ago, the fiscal life of the City was significantly different than what is happening now. So, you have to adjust things around...like continuing to throw money at hiring police officers. Why hire more, yet, not increasing significantly the amount of police officers assigned to patrol. Because, thousand of police officers are working behind some desk and office. Let's fix this problem then look at hiring more. I love the department, but, let's make some real changes.

[Cut waste]

There is tremendous waste in all city departments and more employees than needed. The last person I'd believe is the Mayor whose every statement is politics towards his personal gain.

[somebody]

Then absorb Port police airport police and general service police.

[mark]

The people who don't care that the trash fees promised for more cops have tripled - to over $40/ month - while some councilmembers are denying that this promise was ever made, and are planning to reduce the LAPD instead, are either not the homeowners who have to pay the costs or just plain confused. (Only single-family homeowners and owners of 4-unit or smaller rentals must pay; larger buildings have different trash pick up arrangements, even though they may disproportionately benefit from and need extra cops in their areas.)

In addition to Greig Smith - who's flat-out denied that this is what the trash fee increase was for - and Perry (who just doesn't seem very bright in general) and Koretz, former Chief/ now head of Budget Committee Parks has also stated that because the trash fees go FIRST into the General Fund that the city is under no obligation to keep its stated, moral commitment to taxpayers. Zine is also part of this group - Rosendahl flip-flops back and forth as do some others.

That's just plain WRONG and the kind of thing that fosters public distrust of all officials and taxes - this is the kind of bait-and-switch that gives rise to a general anti-tax attitude. "Even if we agree to tax ourselves, "they" will steal the money and we'll never get what we were promised anyway."

In this case the Mayor and Chf Bratton are right, and the public should stand up and demand that we get what we were promised and what we NEED to maintain our safety. Those councilmembers who treat the public as fools must be held accountable.

[philosophicalcop]

The mayor is missing the point. Those 800 cops he has hired (a good idea) are NOT patrolling our streets. They are tied up in administrative and clerical jobs.

Someone ask the mayor what has happened to the number of street cops since he took over. In fact, it has gone DOWN. More cops on the payroll, and FEWER doing police work. That is city government at its best.

[Will]

Officer to Citizen Ratios:
LAPD - 1 to 426
Chicago- 1 to 216
Philly 1 to 219
NYPD 1 to 228

[Lornaj]

The trash fees have been used to pay overtime for LAPD, and we were told it would be to hire new officers. The trash service has gotten worst. In the 21st century we are in modern dayslavery because we are working for the state. Our budgets are in bad shape because of our city fathers.The great mayor said we had to share the pain, but it is only a select few that are sharing the pain. The mayor, and his staff are not sharing the pain.If we are all equal than LAPD has to share the pain also. But LAPD think they are above the law. I am glad that Bratton is leaving, and should have never been hired in the first place.

[Julian B. Duron]

Heard this before? This tax increase is for the Orphans.(or whatever) Once a politician gets an increase in taxes or any fee. It is mo money mo money mo money. These Special Funds for specific purposes and been borrowed, raided, and plain just rolled into the City's General Fund. Robbing from Peter to pay Paul is going on here. Asking the 22,000 lowest paid employees of the City, that was asked to take a financial hit for these over spending City of Los Angeles elected officials.
Budget is a house of smoke and mirrors. This Mayor will do whatever it takes even bringing this City to bankruptcy for a campaign promise.

[Robert Keil]

The arrogance of this mayor is dumbfounding. He's forcing civilians to take furloughs and pushing for more police officers at the same time. Who elected this bonehead??

[marcia]

Commenters who justify stealing the money being raised from our tripled trash fee hikes into the mis-managed General Funds by some Councilmembers INSTEAD of going toward cops as promised by saying "the LAPD is wasteful, cops are sitting behind desks" etc. are dangerously stupid and detrimental to the rest of us taxpayers. These people probably rent in large buildings so it doesn't turn up on THEIR bills - ONLY homeowners and owners of small buildings of 4 units or less pay the increased fees: for a single-family home that increase went from $12 to 40/ month, a LOT over the course of a year.

It's also insulting to LAPD to claim most cops are lazily eating donuts behind desks: the heavy paperwork of the Consent Decree (from Parks' tenure) required tons of paperwork that often required police themselves to fill out; the number of injured cops on desk duty is small, and has been addressed. BUT with a civilian hiring freeze it's a Catch-22: if the Council hires more civilians, cops can be freed from desk duty.

When we're promised a tax/ fee for something specific like 1000 cops then we expect the money to go where promised. Former Chief Parks (whom Bratton replaced and cleaned up after, and Parks won't stop holding that grudge) says the money was broadly "for public safety" including for the City Attorney's office - toward expanding Trutanich's secret police force of 200 c0ps with cars he wants, as well as dozens of lawyers etc. - that's just NUTS. Parks meanwhile is head of the Budget Committee which allowed the budget to be so mismanaged.

Parks is playing a word game because the hike is a "fee" not a "tax" that was on a ballot, and since it was the Chief and Mayor who were front and center on making the promise, he is only too happy to let them look like liars for his own purposes. Ditto Zine, some of the others. Jan Perry telling the Daily News that promises mean nothing now, in the fact of the budget problems,
and telling Chief Bratton he "doesn't understand" what's really going on takes the award for sheer dumb arrogance.

Greig Smith said over a year ago that the money was ALWAYS meant just to offset the cost of trash pickup, which is a flat-out lie, or was he napping when the whole campaign to raise the fees went on?

New public safety member Paul Koretz replacing Weiss and saying that 9500 cops are enough because crime is down is very disappointing - as Bratton makes clear, and he should know, crime is down ONLY because there are almost 10,000 cops on the streets AND his compstat programs deploys them most efficiently. BUT that means taking them out of less crime-ridden areas as needed, which makes those residents - including Koretz's and Smith's - very angry so they blame the Mayor and LAPD, the very people trying to keep cops on their streets.

The complete ineptitude from the Council as a whole is stymying public safety, managing the budget, everything. Let the Mayor have more control AND blame if it doesn't work out: a horse by committee is a crippled camel.

[Fed Up]

Why is this ONLY campaign promise this idiot chooses to keep. He broke most of the others. His LEGACY, ha!

[dogrob1]

With more officers more money and with more money more problems=what now?

[david barron]

How aout eliminating Gang Intervention Programs (the only new growing business flushed with $$$$ in Los Angeles) which receives our tax $$$ to the tune of 168 million dollars.....use some of that $$$$ to hire additional police. Businesses move back in. Home sales go up, and tax revenue increases again. Additionally, ask the mayor to contribute two thirds of his office budget to support the Department of Building and Safety and the Fire Department. You see, the mayor's last year's budget was 8.8 million dollars. This year he increased it to $$$26 million dollars. (see page 26 or 400 of city budget) (talk about SHARED SACRAFICE) If gang intervention program administrators are still interested in kids, then, let them show real determination by raising their own private funds.
Based on the population of Los Angeles verses New York's population, 10,000 LA Police Officers is still not enough to make us feel safe. Just look at our high school's which need a school police force to keep the peace. A proven system called DISCIPLINE and ORDER has been taken away from our school administrators and teachers.

The common person in our city doesn't need charts to try and convince them that crime is down. Crime is still on the high side. Yesterday's event with charts, was as if the mayor was acting like a realtor trying to persuade a sale to prospective buyers, by telling them; there used to be a lot of auto theft, purse snatching, vandalism, lots of graffiti, open drug sales, and drive-by shootings in the neighborhoods......but now, crime is down....ah, just don't step out at night with your family.

Otherwise, the mayor and city council should consolidate some services, elininate most of the outside consultants, allow the city controller to audit workman compensation claims, remove those officers from behind desks and put those that are able to onto the streets, allow departments to enforce our existing Los Angeles Municipal Codes, then balance the budget before hiring additional officers.

With respect and courtesy to my neighbors,
I'm david barron