LA City Council nixes tax hike for police - again

AP ^ | 2/11/5

[SmithL]

LOS ANGELES - In a vote colored by mayoral campaign politics, the City Council on Friday rejected for a second time a proposal that would have asked voters to consider raising the sales tax to put more police on the beat.

The ballot proposal was defeated 9-6 - one short of the 10 votes needed to place it before voters.

The proposal, pushed by Mayor James Hahn, called for raising the sales tax a half-cent, to 8.75 percent, to hire more officers and fund public-safety programs. The council rejected the same measure earlier this week by an identical vote.

With the primary election in the mayor's race less than a month away, the tax proposal emerged as a fault line between Hahn and two council members trying to take his job, Antonio Villaraigosa and Bernard Parks.

Villaraigosa and Parks were among the six members who voted against sending the funding plan to voters, even though they had supported a similar measure on the county ballot last year.

Hahn has suggested voters consider recalling council members who blocked the plan.

"The citizens of this city have told me time and again that their No. 1 priority is to make this city safer, and a minority of the council today told them that they have to wait," he said in a statement.

Villaraigosa called the Hahn-backed initiative a "half-baked proposal" but acknowledged the issue had become entwined in the campaign.

"It is about mayoral politics," Villaraigosa said. "It is about four years of failed leadership in this city."

The historically understaffed Los Angeles Police Department has about 9,100 officers - about one-fourth the size of the New York Police Department.

[SmithL]

Why would anyone be a Cop in LA (or San Francisco)?

[ScottFromSpokane]

The ballot proposal was defeated 9-6 - one short of the 10 votes needed to place it before voters.

So if it had been defeated 10-7, it would have gone before the voters?

Why can't reporters write?

[inquest]

Good. Perfect opportunity for LA'ers and Californians to start pushing for repeal of gun control. If the cops aren't sufficient, then people have to have the opportunity to make up the difference by protecting themselves.

[GeronL]

If they want more money for police they should cut some other programs. Community Centers, Gay Museums, please don't riot funds.... things like that

[185JHP]

Your tag line reminds me of a great (and clean) comedian: "Your money or your life!"

[longun45]

Of course they ignore how to cut crime without touching the number of cops on the streets. Their PC attitudes and their all controlling and illegal activities would preclude being open to any common sense measure.

[185JHP]

There's a lot of nasty politics of the PC kind in street law enforcement administration. A lot could be done, that isn't. "Cui bono?"

[3rdcanyon]

Only heroes would want the job as a target in that third world city. God bless em.

[goldstategop]

Virtually all the mayoral contenders, save Hertzberg, want to raise taxes and expand L.A's already fat and inefficient city bureaucracy. More to the point, even the liberals here don't like a tax hike. If someone else paid it off course, they'd go for it but not when they're ones who have to dig into their wallets. And like the extra money would go to hiring more cops? Yeah, right.

Denny Crane: "There are two places to find the truth. First God and then Fox News."

[Smogger]

Only heroes would want the job as a target in that third world city. God bless em.

LOL! Please...

[BurbankKarl]

I didnt know that the LA City Council has been taking $22 million per year from the LAPD to pay the bonds on the LA Convention Center.