$1 MILLION OK'D FOR CONVENTION COUNTY BOARD BALKS AT BILL FOR DELEGATE BUSES.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

The county Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to allocate $1 million to pay more than 1,000 sheriff's deputies and other law enforcement personnel during the Democratic National Convention.

But in the same 3-2 vote, the board refused to give the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau $500,000 to charter tour buses to take 4,000 delegates and 6,000 reporters to and from their hotels.

Board Chairwoman Gloria Molina's original motion included both the $1 million and $500,000. But due to a lack of support for it, she backed an amended proposal.

Visitors bureau officials said they would pay for the 286 buses out of their own budget.

Sheriff Lee Baca will use the $1 million for overtime pay of 300 deputies to provide security on the buses, another 100 to 200 support staff, and two teams of 70 deputies each that will remain on standby to help the Los Angeles Police Department in case of violent disturbances, Undersheriff Bill Stonich said.

Other police agencies in the county will provide six teams of 60 officers apiece to be on standby. The LAPD and California Highway Patrol also plan to have thousands of officers at the convention.

To call attention to policy issues, protest groups threaten disturbances during the convention, to be held Aug. 14-17 at Staples Center.

``The term `peaceful protest' is an oxymoron when it comes to some activists,'' Stonich said.

D2K protest spokeswoman Margaret Prescod said the allocation for the sheriff brings the total police protection budget to potentially $15 million.

``We think it's an unnecessary use of taxpayer dollars,'' said Prescod, who said the growing number of law enforcement officers expected at the convention is making protesters ``increasingly defiant.'''

``They hope a 14-foot high fence around Staples Center will silence us,'' she said. ``They hope keeping us out of Pershing Square will silence us. (But) we will not be silenced.''

Although county supervisors are nonpartisan positions, the vote fell along party lines as Democrats Gloria Molina, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Zev Yaroslavsky voted yes and Republicans Michael D. Antonovich and Don Knabe voted no.

Yaroslavsky said officials of the city, the DNC and the local host committee for the convention - who had promised to pay for the convention with private funds - ``have basically fallen flat on their backs.''

Antonovich blasted the cost. ``Subsidizing the multibillionaires and multimillionaires who are co-chairing the Democratic National Convention with tax dollars is wrong,'' he said.

Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer's Association, said the city, DNC or host committee should reimburse the county.