VOTERS OK MORE POLICE
Byline: By Abraham Kwok and David Schwartz, The Arizona Republic
Phoenix residents' fear of crime and violence far outweighed their disdain of taxes
Tuesday as they resoundingly approved a proposition to put additional police officers and
firefighters on the street.
However, voters rejected a campaign-reform move that would have used unspecified taxes to give matching contributions to City Council and mayoral candidates.
The police measure, Proposition 301, which will raise the city's sales tax by 0.1 percent, was passed by nearly a 4-1 ratio. Seventeen percent of registered voters turned up at the polls.
''I believe the public is going to feel safer right away, knowing that help is on the way,'' said Cynthia Schwartz, a resident of the west Maryvale area who championed the police plan.
Residents who voted for passage justified the plan as one that was at least worth a try.
''It's like education,'' Lynn Wendling reasoned. ''Whether you have children or not, you have the responsibility to pay for these services.''
Schwartz's Neighborhood Protection Initiative group had persuaded the City Council in July to place the proposal on the ballot after it failed to get enough signatures as a citizens' initiative.
''This isn't the panacea, but it's a big step in the right direction,'' said Richard Fox, another supporter of Proposition 301.
The group now has its eyes on the formation of a task force designed to review applications of mini-grants for crime prevention. Five percent of the new tax revenues will be used for Block Watch programs.
Two other ballot measures, mainly technical items, easily won approval. Proposition 100 tightens rules on filling vacancies on the council, and Proposition 300 gives Southwest Gas a 25-year license to provide services to the city.
Meanwhile, Proposition 101, the public matching-finance program, failed by nearly a 2-1 ratio.
Dana Larsen of Arizona Common Cause, part of the coalition By the People, said that he is disappointed but that the result ''doesn't shake my conviction or commitment to this.''
Neither proposition had strong or organized opposition, although Proposition 101 suffered from lack of public understanding or empathy.
Public support, meanwhile, gave Proposition 301 momentum from the start, and more people, including Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson, jumped on the bandwagon in the past week.
The sales-tax increase will raise an estimated $12.6 million to add about 200 police officers and 70 firefighters, as well as expand neighborhood programs designed to deter crime.
The tax hike translates into an extra penny on every $10 purchase, or about 50 cents a month per household, backers say.
For Barbara Sauve, a retiree who lives in central Phoenix, the proposition hits close to home.
She said she wants beefed-up forces because she fears for her daughter.
''There just was a shooting two blocks away from here,'' Sauve said. ''You hear about them all the time. I think this is a good idea.''
A few, such as Dan Diethelm, countered that it would take a leap of logic to equate additional police officers to better protection.
''The solution is not to have more officers respond after someone gets shot,'' he said. ''They don't prevent crime. They show up afterward.''
Public sentiment, nonetheless, was overwhelmingly in favor of the proposition. Its passage was helped, in part, by a wave of violence that claimed the lives of 17 people in the past few weeks.
Political-reform-minded Proposition 101, however, had no such emotional selling point.
Many citizens, joined by many of the council's political candidates, said they simply didn't like the idea of having to pay for campaigns.
''Too much monkey business in politics as is,'' said resident Norma Boone, who voted against the plan.
The proposition, the product of more than two years of discussion and drafting, was designed to weaken the link between political candidates and their pursuit of contributions from lobbyists and special-interest groups.
The plan called for giving tax dollars to candidates who signed contracts beforehand to limit campaign spending to $50,000 for City Council races and $150,000 for mayoral races.
Council candidates would have gotten up to $25,000 in assistance and mayoral candidates up to $75,000.
One problem with the proposition was that it did not specify how the money would be raised, although Johnson had suggested an amusement-tax hike for such items as movie and concert tickets.
Chart
VOTE RESULTS
With 364 of 364 precincts reporting.
PROPOSITION 301:
To boost city's sales-tax by 0.1 percent for more police and fire protection.
Yes 63,427
No 17,138
PROPOSITION 101
To provide matching tax dollars to political candidates who agree to campaign spending
limits.
Yes 27,310
No 48,985
COUNCIL RACES:
District 2: Frances Emma Barwood
District 4: Craig Tribken
District 6: Sal DiCiccio
District 8: Runoff required: Bill Scheel and Cody Williams.