ANAHEIM : City to Seek Funds to Hire More Police

The city will apply for a federal grant that would allow it to hire 22 more police officers, if it can come up with $1 million a year in matching funds the grant requires.

The City Council on Tuesday approved a Police Department request to apply for the Police Hiring Supplement Program, a Clinton Administration program that will give federal money to cities specifically for adding officers.

The Anaheim Police Assn., the city’s police union, picketed the council last week, demanding that its officers receive a raise and that 100 more police officers be hired within the next five years.

The department hopes to receive $2 million annually through 1996--the biggest grant given to a city Anaheim’s size--and add officers to its Community Action Police program, or CAP. CAP targets high-crime areas, such as the Leatrice-Wakefield neighborhood between Disneyland and Anaheim Stadium, assigning officers full-time to the area. The city should know whether it will receive the grant by mid-November, officials said.

To be eligible for the grant, the city will have to agree to spend an additional $1 million a year for the next three years.

City Manager James D. Ruth said it would be “ludicrous” not to apply for the grant, but it will be up to the council to find the matching funds if the city receives the grant. The city has cut $34 million from its budget the last two years and officials say it faces an $8-million deficit next year.

“The council will have to decide whether to come up with new revenue, dip into the city’s reserves or make cuts in other programs,” Ruth said. “But adding new police officers has been a priority of this council and the city.”

Interim Police Chief Jimmie Kennedy said the city simply needs more officers. “The question is not whether we can afford adding new officers, it’s whether we can afford not to,” he said.

The police union has argued that the 352-member force only has about 10 more officers than it did 10 years ago, when both the city’s violent crime rate and population were lower.

But some city officials have argued privately that the staffing figures are misleading. They say civilian employees have been hired to do clerical work, freeing up officers for patrol. They also say that the officers’ new schedule--three 12-hour days a week--puts more officers on the street during high-crime periods such as Friday and Saturday nights.

The grants are part of President Clinton’s plan to spend $3.4 billion over the next five years to add 50,000 police officers to local law enforcement agencies nationwide.