Santa Ana’s Budget Plan Cut Except for Public Safety

Santa Ana City Manager David N. Ream unveiled a 1988-89 budget proposal Monday that would include cuts in many departments but would increase spending on fire and police services in a bid to improve neighborhood safety.

The $92.2-million proposal, 1.4% less than this year’s $93.5-million budget, would cut 69 positions, including two deputy city attorney jobs, the deputy police chief and a police lieutenant.

The budget would add 10 new police officers and eight new firefighters. Also, Police Chief Clyde Cronkhite said he plans to reassign to street patrol 63 other officers now doing office and administrative work.

The budget would eliminate spending on Toys on Parade and the Rose Parade, turning over responsibility for city participation in those events to the private sector.

Contracted Copter Patrols

Cronkhite is asking for $100,000 for helicopter patrols, which would be contracted to existing Costa Mesa or Sheriff’s Department units, with a Santa Ana officer aboard.

The City Council considered helicopter patrols in 1986, but the idea got little support.

Cronkhite said he would like the City Council to approve 10 more officer positions for each of the next five years. In a 30-minute presentation at the council meeting, he said that Santa Ana’s crime rate has stayed relatively flat in the last decade--from 8 major crimes per 1,000 people in 1978 to 7.75 in 1987.

Last year, the number of total major crimes dropped 5.6% from the previous year, “but that’s not good enough,” said the new police chief, who took over the department in the fall. “We know we have pockets of crime out there, and we have to return those streets to the people.”

Cronkhite said he hopes to cut police response time and also reduce what he called “quality-of-life crimes”--gangs, street drug activity, prostitution, vagrancy and traffic accidents.

A group of residents, many of whom participate in the city’s Neighborhood Watch program, has clamored for the past year for more police protection. Last week, the group started a recall drive against Mayor Dan Young for voting against spending more money on police pay and other safety issues.

‘Not Going to Buy Us Off’

“I think it’s ironic that all of a sudden they (city officials) are interested in public safety,” said Patricia Mill, a leader of the recall. “They’re not going to buy us off.”

Young said the budget proposal’s emphasis on public safety is not a hastily constructed plan to appease a group of vocal opponents: “I think the City Council is being responsive in listening to the community. But this emphasis comes from the police chief. It’s what he wanted and is not subject to the political currents that you’ve seen in the council chambers.”