CA: Fighting gangs may get taxing - L.A. council eyes '08 vote on levy (aka property tax hike)

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to move ahead with plans to ask voters to approve a new property tax that would raise $50 million to fight an escalating torrent of gang violence.

The plan would cost a city property owner $72 per parcel a year, and the money would be used to expand anti-gang and prevention programs that offer everything from gang-intervention workers to the Los Angeles Better Educated Students for Tomorrow after-school project, popularly called LA's BEST.

But even as council members voted 13-0 to order that ballot language be drafted, they were divided over whether there would be enough public support for a May referendum and urged a delay until 2008. Councilman Bernard Parks was absent.

"I still think voters would approve this now, but I'm glad at least that the council agrees that we need to do something," Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who had proposed the tax, said after the vote.

In the Valley last year, gangs were blamed for four dozen homicides, and authorities have said they are increasingly concerned about the growing involvement of adolescents in gangs.

But even as the council ordered that language for the tax measure be prepared, some members questioned whether funding has been the issue in failing to curb the rising violence.

In a recent report, civil-rights attorney Connie Rice, noting that gang membership has soared and violence has escalated, questioned the effectiveness of the city's current anti-gang programs.

Saying there has been a piecemeal approach in the area, Rice called for a comprehensive solution through a single agency headed by a gang czar with enough political clout to cut through red tape and coordinate prevention and intervention services.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa also has been cautious about any calls for a tax to fund gang programs and is expected to release his own comprehensive gang report next month.

Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association cautioned city officials against a parcel tax.

"I would hope they look at what happened last year when 76.9 percent of voters rejected a parcel tax for education," Coupal said. "It is the most regressive tax there is, with no consideration of equity.

"Another issue is whether they need the tax. We think the city has enough money to fund these programs and doesn't need to find new sources of revenue."

But Hahn - whose district includes the Harbor-Gateway area where there have been two homicides in the past month - said more money is needed for gang prevention.

"We have 40,000 gang members in this city and only 61 gang workers," said Hahn, adding that she will pursue putting the measure on the ballot next year.

"We know gang crime costs us $2 billion a year. Last year, we had 240 murders blamed on gangs. That alone costs us $400 million a year," she said. "I think this is a good investment and the people of Los Angeles will support us."

Council members, however, said they wanted more time before putting the measure before voters and noted that the May 15 election is expected to have a low turnout.

"I tell you, I don't think the timing is right," Councilman Herb Wesson said. "This is a good plan to work from, but we are going to have to build support. We need to make sure we get the turnout necessary for this. Let's not just develop a ballot measure. Let's develop one that has a chance at passing."

Councilman Tony Cardenas, who chairs the council's ad hoc Committee on Gangs and Youth Violence, also urged a delay.

"I have lost a lot of sleep over whether we should put this on the May ballot," Cardenas said. "There is no way I can conceive of that we will be ready to look voters in the eyes and say we know how to hold ourselves accountable, that we know what to do and what we are going to do to save lives.

"We need to get our own house in order before we ask the voters for this, and I don't see how we can do that in this short of a time frame."

Cardenas was among council members who said they view the gang threat not only as city officials, but also as parents.

"Every day I hold my breath, in those hours my two boys are walking home from the bus stop, ... that they could be shot by some idiot driving up and asking where are you from. That's the toughest part of my day."

Councilwoman Jan Perry listed several young victims of gang violence in her district and said she doesn't believe most people appreciate the gravity of the situation.

"You never know until you go to a homicide scene and see that body lying there and you see the people whose lives are torn apart," Perry said.

"We have 40,000 gang members in this city and only 61 gang workers," said Hahn.....

What is a gang worker? Aren't most, if not all, the police, parole system employees, prison guards, graffiti cleaners, court system workers, hospital workers... working with gang members? Hahn wants to low-ball the number at 61, when really hundreds of thousands of people are necessary to clean up after the mess of gangs.

"We know gang crime costs us $2 billion a year. Last year, we had 240 murders blamed on gangs. That alone costs us $400 million a year," she said...

I find it hard to believe that it costs $1.66 million per murder. How did she come up with this bogus number? Is she counting the cost of the police, the justice system...? If so, I thought she just said there were only 61 gang workers????

I am in Hahn's district. She is a boob.

The City Hall Gang
Proposed tax hike is an insult to L.A. voters
Daily News Editorial
January 24, 2007

LAST week, most Los Angeles City Council members appeared to look the other way when Janice Hahn proposed a $50 million property tax hike to fight gangs. Now, a week later, the council has backed the measure unanimously.

What happened to change all those minds so radically?

For one thing, everybody else in town is suddenly coming up with proposals to deal with gangs, and the do-nothing council could hardly be left out. And then, of course, members undoubtedly did some polling and found that if they spent enough money lying to voters about their plan, it might just pass.

Thus the newfound enthusiasm for a regressive $72 tax per year per parcel to raise money the council doesn't need.

Gangs are the issue of the moment, thanks to civil-rights attorney Connie Rice's stinging report showing that the city has wasted billions on piecemeal, ineffective efforts to curtail the crisis. And so the council has reacted in the only way it knows: Reaching into the pockets of taxpayers.

But there are some problems with this all-too-predictable need for cash.

For starters, it would behoove the council to come up with a comprehensive anti-gang strategy before asking the public to fund it. As it is, the council's approach seems to be: Give up the money, and we promise we'll figure out what to do with it later.

That's the way it's worked in the past, and the money gets squandered.

L.A.'s gang crisis is very real, and people are desperate to do something about it. But that "something" has to be more than the usual fluff that politicians think is a substitute for action. And it has to be more than a case of city leaders seizing on the crisis du jour as an excuse for another money grab.

We generally know what the outline of a comprehensive anti-gang strategy would look like. It would be a systemic effort to overhaul the gang culture; to provide opportunities, jobs, hope, stability and quality education where they are lacking.

But we need a lot more than a broad outline, we need a plan for making that outline a reality. And we need the council to make an honest effort to better spend the $7 billion budget it already has before going to the public for more money.

City revenues have swelled in recent years due to the real-estate boom. The council has raised an additional $75 million by raising garbage fees to hire cops - money that remains unspent. The council also has its own ridiculous $170,000 a year salaries and bloated staffs to pare down. And city government has for decades rubber-stamped expensive public-employee pay raises and frivolous lawsuit settlements.

Before the City Hall gang has the nerve to exploit public fears about gangs for more money, it ought to have the decency to rationalize its own spending.

Maybe the council should take a poll to see what the public thinks of that idea - better government, not just more expensive government. We suspect the public would like that even more than a new tax.

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