Where I live in Los Angeles, I can get a pizza faster than I can get the police.

On the November 2nd ballot, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has put, County Measure A. This measure, if passed by a two-thirds majority, would raise the county sales tax from 8.25% to 8.75%. The Measure, which is called the The Public Safety and Homeland Security Tax Act, would ostensibly put more police officers and sheriffs on the street in the city and county of Los Angeles.

I am not in support of this measure.

First, of all the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Daily News have written several stories on the poor utilization of the Los Angeles Police Department. Here s the scenario. Much of the violent crime, including murder, occurs in certain parts of the city. Everyone knows what they are, South Central Los Angeles (renamed South Los Angeles), area of the San Fernando Valley especially around Pacoima and North Hollywood, and so on. So, you re thinking, there are a million cops in these hard hit areas and a few police officers in zip codes of Los Angeles where there are less than one murder a year. You d be wrong. There are as many police officers and homicide detectives in the hard hit areas as the low crime areas. That means the low crime areas get aggressive policing, and the hard hit areas, get over-worked and over burdened police officers struggling to do their job.

What does this mean for me? When I call the police for the regular minor disturbances, prostitutes giving blow jobs to johns in cars on our quiet neighborhood streets, complaints about neighbors who think it s a good idea to blast their stereo on the street rather than in their house, or just suspicious behavior I get no response. Once I was told that they were far too busy with serious crimes to the south of me. Another time the police called me back several hours later asking if I still needed their help. Hmmm, well gee, I don t know YES!

When Mayor James K. Hahn recruited William Bratton to be our police chief this was all supposed to change. Bill Bratton came from New York where Times Square had turned from the Sodom and Gomorrah of my youth to the Disneyland of today. We were going to get a system like New York City s CompStat which gives computerized readouts of where the crime is happening and sends the police there. Bill Bratton was supposed to employ his broken window policy and clamp down on those minor crimes before they escalate into worse ones.

Funny, I haven t seen that. Rather the airspace above my house serves as a quick helicopter path to areas in South Los Angeles, where they are pursuing gang violence. Calls from myself and neighbors to stop graffiti, petty crime, and suspicious behavior, are passed over. Oh, they say, please keep calling. We ll mark these down as incidences and then you ll get more police. Yeah, right. I m not holding my breath.

Do I think that this fifty cent tax hike will get more police. I say, not likely. No doubt West L.A. and Western San Fernando Valley will get safer and I ll just have to wait. I say, no thanks.

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