BRATTON TO PUSH FOR LAPD TAX.

Byline: James Nash Staff Writer

With a survey showing morale improving in the Los Angeles Police Department and a panel in place to investigate the LAPD's handling of the Rampart case, Chief William Bratton said Tuesday that the department will soon take its case for hiring more officers to the public.

Newly transferred LAPD Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell, whose responsibilities shifted this week from operations to personnel, will champion the cause of a tax increase next year to expand the LAPD from its current 9,300 officers, Bratton said.

Bratton said McDonnell will speak to business leaders and others in the public about LAPD understaffing and how to solve it. Bratton is among LAPD officials who want to ask voters in November 2004 to approve a parcel tax of $100 for every 1,000 officers hired.

The LAPD is not expected to grow for at least two years, the chief said.

While officers complain that the department is stretched so thin they are sometimes in danger, they're generally happier with their jobs now than before Bratton was hired last year, according to a Linder & Associates survey released Tuesday.

About 25 percent of LAPD officers responded to the survey last month, and 85 percent of them said Bratton is leading the LAPD in the right direction. But the officers remained unhappy about all the paperwork to comply with the federal consent decree imposed after the Rampart case, according to the the survey funded by the Los Angeles Police Foundation. And more than three-quarters said their supervisors were more concerned with staying out of trouble than doing their work effectively.

Bratton, at a news conference Tuesday, said the survey points to a re-energized LAPD.

``It reinforces that officers here want to do police work,'' he said. ``They want to be released from the paperwork that they feel bogs them down and particularly the work of their supervisors.''

Much of the paperwork stems from the consent decree intended to stop Rampart-era abuses, and the Los Angeles Police Commission on Tuesday called for a blue-ribbon panel to get speedy clearance to examine the LAPD's handling of the scandal.

The panel, funded by donations from Los Angeles law firms, has taken only preliminary steps, said civil-rights attorney Connie Rice, who heads the group.

Police commissioners said they will urge the City Council to recognize the panel and let it begin working, rather than shuttle it through council committees.

Rice said some city officials may be dragging their feet because of the politically sensitive nature of Rampart.

``The city is capable of Kremlinizing anything to death,'' she said.

James Nash, [phone]

james.nash(at)dailynews.com