EDITORIAL ONE-NOTE SHERIFF BACA NEEDS TO SOLVE PROBLEMS, NOT RECYCLE HIS FAILED TAX PLAN.LOS Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. County Sheriff Lee Baca Leroy David Baca (b. May 27 1942, East Los Angeles, California) is the Sheriff of Los Angeles County, California. After graduating from Benjamin Franklin High School (Los Angeles) in 1960, Baca worked his way through East Los Angeles College before starting with the L.A. sure is predictable. Throw him a problem, and you'll get the same solution: Not enough cops? Raise taxes! Overcrowded o·ver·crowd v. o·ver·crowd·ed, o·ver·crowd·ing, o·ver·crowds v.tr. To cause to be excessively crowded: a system of consolidation that only overcrowded the classrooms. jails? Raise taxes! Rising gang violence? Raise taxes! The act is getting old. In 2004, Baca campaigned for a half-cent sales-tax hike, claiming he needed the funds to hire more cops. But voters rejected the measure, which fell short of the necessary two-thirds public approval. Since then, Baca has tried, without success, to get Sacramento to change the state constitution so that only 55 percent public approval would be needed to pass future tax measures. And now he's resurrected his old tax plan, albeit with some cosmetic, presumably pre·sum·a·ble adj. That can be presumed or taken for granted; reasonable as a supposition: presumable causes of the disaster. poll-tested changes to fool the gullible gul·li·ble adj. Easily deceived or duped. [From gull2.] gul . Like the last plan, Baca's new version would split proceeds between his department, the Los Angeles Police Department "LAPD" and "L.A.P.D." redirect here. For other uses, see LAPD (disambiguation).  This article or section is written like an . and smaller cities that have their own police forces. But this time, he's asking for a smaller tax hike -- one quarter-cent per dollar instead of a half-cent. He also no longer describes it as a measure to hire more cops, but an anti-gang strategy. County supervisors, to their credit, aren't buying Baca's act, and they've all but said no to putting another measure before voters this November. Good for them. Baca has no business bringing back this failed idea without first answering some basic questions, such as: Why does the county need new taxes when it's awash in soaring property- tax revenues? Why should Baca get more money to hire deputies when he can't even use all the staffing funds he already has? Why does he need new sources of revenue when other area police forces have been able to boost their ranks without them? And why did gang crime go up between 2003 and 2005 in areas policed by Baca's department, but down in areas covered by the LAPD 1. LAPD - Link Access Procedure on the D channel. 2. LAPD - Los Angeles Police Department. ? We all know that Baca wants more money -- he's made that abundantly clear. But what he hasn't done is show why he needs, let alone deserves, it. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion