by Don Kazak
East Palo Alto voters will go the polls next Tuesday to decide whether to approve a new property tax to support police services. City officials say the tax is necessary to maintain current levels of safety in the community. But critics of the tax say it is unnecessary and just another burden on local property owners.
The tax, Measure I, would raise $889,000 a year for three years. It needs a two-thirds margin to be approved. If passed, homeowners will be assessed $150 a year and commercial property owners $1,000 a year.
A second tax on the ballot, Measure J, would increase business license taxes in the city and raise about $50,000 a year in revenue. Measure J, which needs a simple majority to pass, has not sparked as much debate in the city.
If Measure I fails, the Police Department will cut back from 41 budgeted positions in 1996-97 to 27 positions in the current fiscal year, which began July 1.
A group of residents that fought the city over its former parcel tax is involved in opposing Measure I. Some of them are members of the United Homeowners of East Palo Alto, who were critical of the parcel tax, twice approved by city voters in 1989 and 1994 but declared illegal and unconstitutional by a state appellate court earlier this year.
Now, the same people are critical of the city government in general and Measure I in particular.
"Past failures to fulfill promises led us to where we are today," said Samuel Rasheed, a resident and member of Citizens Against Tax Measures. "The other two tax measures didn't solve the (city's) problems."
Rasheed, who has been frustrated at the length of time it has taken the city to solve problems and disturbances at two liquor stores near his home, said he is generally supportive of the city's police.
"I, too, support the police," he said. "But the police have to be accountable and efficient. We have been hiring officers that have been rejects from other departments. This (tax measure) won't give us enough money to solve the problem."
Police Chief Wes Bowling notes that his department has been suffering from a high level of turnover. There are currently seven unfilled positions in the 41-officer department. How many officers will remain on the streets depends in part on whether Measure I is passed by the voters next week.
Bowling said the department will be reduced to 27 officers without Measure I.
If that happens, the city will no longer have special units for narcotics, schools, traffic or community policing. "Going back to having (just) a patrol force and detectives will be difficult," Bowling said.
Without Measure I, the Police Department will spend $3.5 million in 1997-98. That includes about $3 million of the city's $4.9 million General Fund, or about 61 percent of the city's discretionary dollars. If Measure I passes, the Police Department will have $4.4 million to spend, or about 26 percent more than it would without Measure I.
The department is assisted now by sheriff's deputies, who help patrol the streets on a contract between the county and city, and by sheriff's department detectives who staff the investigations bureau.
But Bowling said he doesn't have enough officers now, with the seven vacancies, to do everything that needs to be done.
During a recent Cable Co-op forum on the tax measures, one resident angrily called in and said she wouldn't support Measure I because the police can't keep drug dealers and gamblers out of Jack Farrell Park. "Without specialized units, I have no one to assign that problem to," Bowling replied.
Bowling does note that the city is considerably safer than it used to be, especially during the dark days of 1992, when there were 42 homicides in the city. Last year, there was one murder, and the rates of other violent crimes have also declined considerably since 1992.
Between 1992 and 1996, robberies dropped 37 percent, robberies with guns fell 61 percent, assaults with guns decreased 73 percent, and burglaries slid 6 percent. In the same period, simple assaults increased 10 percent and thefts rose 44 percent.
William Webster, a resident who supports Measure I, appeared at a United Homeowners of East Palo Alto forum July 12 to talk about the ballot measure. Webster noted that at 2 a.m. the previous night, two young men tried to assault him in his parking area. Webster said he yelled for help and the young men ran off. He added that someone heard his cries, and the first police car arrived within two minutes.
"I don't need anything more vivid to demonstrate why I should support Measure I," Webster said.
City Manager Jerry Groomes notes that the city has now had success in attracting major retailers and developers for its redevelopment projects, including Gateway and University Circle. Redevelopment will be the key to the city's future financial health, he said, and it won't be possible without safer streets.
"The business community and development community see us in a completely different manner today," Groomes said.
Groomes and Bowling are also fearful that if Measure I is defeated, it could have a ripple effect through the Police Department. There are seven vacancies now. Without Measure I, the department is budgeted for 27 positions in 1997-98. While the department has 34 officers now, Groomes believes the city won't have to lay any officers off if Measure I fails, because an average of seven officers a year have been leaving anyway.
"I think there are those (officers) who are hanging in there to see if it passes," Groomes said. "And if it doesn't, they'll leave."
He explained that being down to 27 officers will mean longer shifts and overtime, plus more stress, with little promise of the pay raises that Measure I would have made possible. "It will tell them there's no hope," Groomes said.
But the police may be caught in a larger battle in East Palo Alto that dates back to the bitterly fought 1983 incorporation election. Rasheed, in speaking out against Measure I, echoes a refrain from 1983: "The city should have made sure it had an infrastructure to support it" before incorporation, he said.
For the last four years, the five-member City Council has been united on the twin priorities of public safety and redevelopment, but that followed 10 years of contentiously divided City Councils. Those divisions are no longer evident on the council, but they still exist in the community.
Marilyn Scherzer, who opposes Measure I, said the city government needs to "be more creative than going back to the taxpayers again and again" to fix the city's fiscal problems.
The first redevelopment revenues from the finished Gateway stores aren't likely to be realized until more than a year from now.
Even if the city approves Measure I, the city still faces another financial problem. The city owes a refund of almost $4 million to property owners. The rebate is the result of a court decision that ruled East Palo Alto's eight-year-old parcel tax to be unconstitutional primarily because it had not received approval from two-thirds of the voters. The only real question on the refunds is over how many years a judge will allow the city to make the repayment.
Some of the same people who supported the lawsuit against the city challenging the parcel tax are now opposing Measure I. They argue that the city hasn't been run efficiently. Marilyn Scherzer wants to know, if the city must cut its budget, why it can't cut the budget in other services instead of police, even keeping city offices open part-time instead.
"People want to hold onto ill feelings without getting the facts," said Vice Mayor Sharifa Wilson.
Measure I is a tax for police services. But it's also a barometer of the community's confidence, or lack of confidence, in the city government.
The Ravenswood City School District has endorsed both Measures I and J in next week's election, in contrast to last fall when the City Council failed to endorse a school district bond measure.
"We have the best relationship we've ever had with the Police Department," said school board member Bomani Siwatu. "They do more than just arrest kids: They participate; they come to programs, do community outreach."
As for Measure J, Siwatu said, the increase from business license fees helps the city financially, which could help recreation programs for youth. "Whatever is good for the community is good for the district," he said.
Staff Writer Elizabeth Darling contributed to this story.
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