City, Reeling From Recent Violence, Beefs Up Police Force

PASADENA — With the aftershocks from a series of violent crimes still reverberating through the city, the Pasadena City Council on Tuesday approved hiring 11 police officers and equipping police radio cars with mobile computers.

An outreach program to help neighborhoods develop community approaches to fighting crime was also given the go-ahead.

The votes were taken after Deborah Coats, whose 14-year-old son, Stephen, was murdered with two other boys on Halloween night in an ambush attack near his home, made an impassioned plea for more resources for the Police Department.

Crime and social problems are “a direct reflection of what we will tolerate,” she told the council. “I am here to tell you as a resident that I am willing to tolerate no more,” said Coats, who works for the Police Department as a crime-scene investigator.

The cost of the new personnel, which includes eight patrol officers, two detectives and a non-sworn technical specialist for the department’s records section, will be paid from the city’s share of a half-cent sales tax approved by California voters this month. The annual cost will be $350,000.

Funds for the new computer equipment, which will allow officers to check suspects’ outstanding warrants and file reports while they are in the field, come from a one-time state sales tax fund and from assets seized from convicted drug dealers. The cost will be about $800,000.

The neighborhood outreach program will be paid for with $61,132 from a discretionary reserve fund controlled by City Manager Philip Hawkey.

The council actions are the first concrete results of a series of public meetings to discuss ways to increase police and fire personnel during a time of budgetary austerity.

The department currently has 219 sworn police personnel, including commanders, officers and investigators. Police brass say that in order for the department to meet a national standard of two officers per 1,000 residents, they would have to hire 79 additional officers. But city budget planners, who have had to pare $20 million from the city’s general fund in the past three years, have established a more modest goal of 27.

“This is the first step on a long road to take back the streets of the city,” Councilman William Paparian, chairman of the council’s Public Safety Committee, said of Tuesday’s action.

The city will consider a variety of other revenue sources to hire additional police, Paparian said--including user fees for some police services, additional parking meters on city streets, federal grants and increased fees for liquor stores and bars.

Councilman Chris Holden was the lone dissenting vote on the new police personnel and equipment.

“I thought the idea was treating public safety with a holistic approach, not simply with more police on the streets,” he said.

Holden accused his colleagues of “tapping out” the city’s share of Proposition 172 funds--the half-cent sales tax--without addressing other public safety issues. He also expressed concern that the state Legislature would further reduce the city’s share of property and sales taxes next year.

“There are a variety of approaches we have at our disposal,” Holden said. “There’s no need to rush in to allocate resources.”

But other council members insisted upon the urgency of hiring more police.

“When I was 14, I could travel around on my bicycle,” Paparian said. “My children do not leave their front yard unless they are accompanied by an adult.”