Looking for a Bargain in Policing

Although they may seem like marriages of convenience, the ties between the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and its 40 contract cities are among the strongest unions in Southern California.

By contracting with the Sheriff’s Department, even the tiniest of municipalities can field a force of patrol and specialty deputies and never once worry about training costs, state-of-the-art equipment or pensions. In return for all this special order policing, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department collects contract fees of $145 million a year.

For many cities, this relationship has been a successful one. But others have learned that even the most promising of marriages can turn sour.

Most recently, controversy over liability expenses threatened to drive a number of cities from the sheriff’s fold. In other instances, tensions over policing tactics and political sensibilities caused longtime contract cities to consider either hiring their own officers or contracting with another city for protection. At least two cities, Hawaiian Gardens and Cudahy, terminated their contracts, only to return to the Sheriff’s Department a few years later.

Today, the sheriff’s policing contracts are in effect with almost half of the county’s cities, which have a cumulative population of nearly 1.6 million people. Sheriff departments in other Southern California counties have similar contract arrangements with cities in their regions. But the Los Angeles contracting plan came about mostly by accident.

It started with the so-called Lakewood Plan in 1954. Due in part to an effort to avoid annexation by Long Beach, the unincorporated area of Lakewood decided to become a city. To make the transition less expensive and more palatable to voters, cityhood backers decided to contract with the county for fire and police services.

According to longtime Lakewood City Atty. John Todd, the Sheriff’s Department agreed to continue patrolling Lakewood just as it had before incorporation. In return, the city agreed to let the Sheriff’s Department keep all fines and forfeitures.

“It was a radical idea,” Todd said of the plan. “And it was very successful. I still think it’s the future.”

The plan encountered much opposition from established cities throughout the state, because they viewed the agreement as a threat. “All the police chiefs . . . wanted their own dynasty, while others took the position we were just a tool of the county,” Todd said. Eventually the contract cities were forced to pay for the sheriff’s services directly, and the fines and forfeiture deal was scrapped.

Long-Standing Relationships

Today, the services of one deputy and cruiser for an eight-hour shift cost cities about $218,000 a year. Lt. John Radeleff of the Sheriff’s Department Contract Law Enforcement Bureau said that price tag represents a number of expenses.

“That’s not really the cost for just one deputy, that’s the cost of the entire police department behind the deputy,” Radeleff said. “It includes expenses for a building, gas, guns, cars, clerical help, supervisors, everything.”

In those instances in which a city has incorporated and decided to stay with the Sheriff’s Department, it is due to a long-standing relationship as much as it is money, Radeleff said. “Keep in mind that we’ve served these communities before they were incorporated, so our relationship goes back to 1850, when the department was created.” But sometimes even long-term relationships go bad.

At least one contract marriage ended in divorce four years ago when Santa Fe Springs severed its 38-year relationship with the Sheriff’s Department and contracted with the city of Whittier.

The problem wasn’t so much with the Sheriff’s Department as it was with the county and its handling of lawsuits, City Manager Fred Latham said. The contract cities were growing increasingly concerned over some high-priced court judgments and settlements, which the contract cities were being asked to help cover.

At that time, Santa Fe Springs’ contract cost $4.2 million a year. But what really concerned the city was what it was paying beyond that for county court settlements and judgments. In one five-year period, that expense amounted to $1.5 million. Only $150,000 of that sum was associated with incidents that occurred in Santa Fe Springs.

“What it came down to is we were paying for the actions of officers in other cities,” Latham said. “And we kept having to pay more and more.”

Officials there and in other cities said the county was doing a poor job of handling even the smallest legal cases, and complained that the county could not even find critical case files.

In one notorious lawsuit, the county had to pay more than $25 million over a 1989 incident in Cerritos in which a group of deputies were accused of clubbing, cuffing and falsely arresting 36 party-goers attending a bridal shower at the home of a Samoan American family. Contract city officials were also irritated when they learned of a $7.25-million judgment in favor of a woman who was paralyzed when her car was struck by another motorist who was being chased by sheriff’s deputies. Contract city officials were never informed of the existence of the case, and were told of it only when they were required to pay half of this judgment, said Sam Olivito, executive director of the California Contract Cities Assn.

Added to the frustration in Santa Fe Springs was the concern that sheriff’s deputies weren’t fully covering the city, much of which is commercial and industrial. Deputies would reportedly drift from the relatively quiet and dull commercial areas to other areas or cities where crime was more active.

The Sheriff’s Department has denied that it neglects any of its contract cities, but said deputies are dispatched to areas where there is trouble. Although a particular deputy may be assigned primarily to a contract city, that doesn’t mean he won’t be called to a neighboring area if there is trouble.

“Many times it’s reciprocal, it’s like mutual aid,” said Capt. Jon Engebretsen of the department’s Contract Law Enforcement Bureau.

Since Santa Fe Springs broke with the sheriff, officials say that improvements have been made on the issue of liability. Among other things, representatives of contract cities are now members of liability oversight boards, giving them a say in whether cases should be settled or go to court. The county has also given the cities a role in risk management under which they will help review practices and policies on deputy supervision, training, report writing and incident debriefing.

Currently, cities must contribute an additional 6% of their total contract cost to the Contract Cities Liability Trust Fund, Olivito said.

“Most of the cities, if not all, are relatively satisfied with the sheriff’s,” Olivito said.

The contract cities’ attempts to get a handle on liability haven’t been without controversy, however. A recent proposal to change liability coverage from the county to a private company was viewed critically by almost a quarter of the contract cities because it would have increased the cost of liability coverage to as much as 10% of the total contact price. That proposal was dropped last month.

Recent changes in county leadership, including last year’s election of Lee Baca as sheriff, have also calmed the nerves of officials, city executives say. In some instances, they say, they have been impressed by the responsiveness to their concerns.

Making Improvements

In at least one case, responsiveness on the part of the Sheriff’s Department was credited with turning around a deteriorating relationship.

By the time West Hollywood, which has a sizable gay population, attained cityhood in 1984, a number of residents had already criticized sheriff’s deputies as being homophobic. They charged that deputies routinely ignored assaults on gays. Critics also chafed at the site of helmeted deputies breaking up ostensibly peaceful public demonstrations.

“They were viewed almost as an invading force,” said West Hollywood Mayor John Heilman.

Despite this animosity, civic leaders were too busy creating a new city to consider a break. When the city could consider its own police department, financial concerns had already settled the matter. West Hollywood officials simply could not afford such perks as special investigators and helicopters--services they already got through the Sheriff’s Department. They also did not have to worry about training expenses, capital costs for a police headquarters or pensions, among other things.

Nancy Greenstein, West Hollywood’s former director of police services, persuaded grudging deputies to sit on a special committee devoted to addressing residents’ complaints. Deputies were further persuaded to participate in weekend “bar walks” in which deputies and other officials passed out brochures on gay-bashing and discussed the issue directly. Other deputies were encouraged to conduct reverse stings, in which they would dress in plain clothes and act as bait for those who would attack gays.

Over time, residents saw a willingness to cooperate on the part of the Sheriff’s Department and tensions were reduced, Greenstein said. “It took us about five years, but we were successful,” Greenstein said.

Today, many view the city and Sheriff’s Department as a good fit.

“I think we’re largely satisfied now,” Heilman said. “We’re getting good service from the department and they’re working very well with the community.”

In another contract city, Lynwood, community pressure also resulted in a change in policing. For years, according to one community activist and former Neighborhood Watch president, Lynwood was viewed as an area where deputies were encouraged to use a heavy hand.

“There was this mentality that this was the Wild West, Dodge City,” said Adolph Lopez. “This was the area where all the cars were stolen, where all the drugs were run, and what you needed were the meanest hombres as deputies.”

Lopez said the Sheriff’s Department has worked hard to change that attitude and has, for the most part, succeeded. However, he said the department could do more to reflect Lynwood’s heavy Latino population by assigning more Spanish-speaking deputies to the city.

As a means of improving relations with contract cities, the Sheriff’s Department allows them to tailor their contracts. If cities want to focus special attention on truancy or gangs, the department will draw up a contract that does this.

La Mirada, like some other cities, flirted seriously with the idea of dropping its sheriff’s contract and hiring the Whittier Police Department instead. Ultimately, the city decided to stick with the Sheriff’s Department for the price of $5 million a year.

City Manager Gary Sloan said the reason for considering a switch was, once again, liability. Sloan said a proposal from Whittier had many of the things La Mirada was looking for, but that the county had done much to improve its handling of legal claims.

Presented with two options that appeared about equal, La Mirada chose to continue in its relationship with the Sheriff’s Department.

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Sheriff in These Parts, Too

In addition to patrolling unincorporated county territory, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department provides police protection to 40 cities on a contract basis.

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CITY POPULATION SQ. MILES AGOURA HILLS 21,400 8.05 ARTESIA 16,600 1.61 AVALON 3,450 1.25 BELLFLOWER 66,000 6.14 BRADBURY 900 1.99 CALABASAS 19,150 12.84 CARSON 89,600 19.24 CERRITOS 56,200 8.79 CITY OF COMMERCE 12,900 6.54 CITY OF INDUSTRY 690 11.93 CUDAHY 24,700 1.09 DIAMOND BAR 56,700 14.77 DUARTE 22,150 6.57 HAWAIIAN GARDENS 14,650 0.95 HIDDEN HILLS 1,920 1.71 LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE 20,350 8.61 LA HABRA HEIGHTS 6,625 6.39 LA MIRADA 46,600 7.77 LA PUENTE 40,800 3.44 LAKEWOOD 78,200 9.54 LANCASTER 123,200 94.19 LAWNDALE 29,900 1.93 LOMITA 20,300 1.89 LYNWOOD 66,700 4.84 MALIBU 12,450 19.61 NORWALK 100,900 9.35 PALMDALE 114,900 101.88 PARAMOUNT 54,600 4.66 PICO RIVERA 61,800 8.23 RANCHO PALOS VERDES 43,150 13.43 ROLLING HILLS 2,000 2.98 ROLLING HILLS ESTATES 8,300 3.44 ROSEMEAD 55,100 5.50 SAN DIMAS 35,750 15.35 SANTA CLARITA 131,400 42.73 SOUTH EL MONTE 21,950 2.80 TEMPLE CITY 33,500 3.85 WALNUT 32,000 8.61 WEST HOLLYWOOD 37,600 1.98 WESTLAKE VILLAGE 7,925 5.43 TOTAL 1,593,010 491.90

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Source: Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department