Council Panel OKs Plan to Add 200 Policemen--Double Bradley’s Goal

A plan to add 200 more police officers in the next fiscal year, double the number called for in Mayor Tom Bradley’s proposed budget, was backed Wednesday by the Los Angeles City Council’s Finance and Revenue Committee.

The committee’s recommendation calls for hiring 200 additional officers, compared to the 100 called for in Bradley’s $2.1-billion spending plan for the coming fiscal year.

If the committee’s recommendation is approved by the full City Council, the Police Department’s authorized strength would rise to 7,100 officers by 1986--the largest it has been since 1981.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, chairman of the three-member committee, said he anticipated that his colleagues on the council would go along with the recommendation when it begins reviewing the budget on May 10.

“There is no question that public safety remains the No. 1 issue . . . ,” Yaroslavsky said.

The council committee, which includes David Cunningham and Joy Picus, generally praised the mayor’s budget. It then came up with the $2.7 million for hiring the police officers by lopping off some equipment purchases and reducing the number of new city employees that could be hired.

In addition to adding police officers, the committee also recommended a $2.5-million increase for public works services, including a continued program of street paving, improved trash pickup and trimming 8,000 to 10,000 more trees than the mayor’s budget would allow. The committee also proposed more money for maintenance and promotion at the Los Angeles Zoo.

The committee found some of the money for the projects by cutting allocations for various departments. The rest, the committee said, could come from additional revenue expected from such sources as interest on the notes purchased by city employees through their deferred compensation program.

However, it was clear that the most significant change was the recommendation for more officers, which top police officials have been lobbying hard to get.

After the committee action, Assistant Police Chief Barry M. Wade said the department was pleased with the vote.

“It’s our belief that the council has squeezed every dollar it can to provide more police officers, and we have a need for substantially more officers than we have now,” Wade said.

The police staffing theme has been a persistent controversy at City Hall. It was a major issue in the recent mayoral race between Bradley and Councilman John Ferraro, with Ferraro arguing that the city could boost the department by 1,300 officers over three years with no increase in taxes.

Bradley brushed off that idea and pushed, instead, to raise property taxes in order to pay for 1,000 more new officers over a period of several years. The proposal will go before city voters on the June 4 ballot.

Yaroslavsky said he and Police Chief Daryl F. Gates view the committee move as “a show of good faith with the people” that it is serious about trying to put more officers on the streets.

After last year’s budget was approved, the City Council agreed to add 100 officers, and that appropriation was included by Bradley in the budget he submitted two weeks ago.

Yaroslavsky, however, who has had his clashes with Gates in the past and who is frequently mentioned as a future mayoral candidate, said the city could afford 200 more officers by “tightening the belt in some other areas, and we ought to invest our dollars in that way.”