By Walter Moore, Candidate For Mayor Of Los Angeles, WalterMoore For Mayor.com

City Hall spends about $168 million of your money each year on so-called “anti-gang” programs.  For example, various programs involve riding boats, playing golf and installing urinals.  The programs clearly are not working, and never have.

In 2006, City Hall accordingly spent $593,000 of your money for a “study” of those programs, which was issued in January 2007.  The study called for the City to consolidate 23 programs under one person’s authority, a “gang czar.”

Rather than simply following that recommendation, this summer City Hall then spent another $500,000 of your money for an “audit” of those programs, which was issued on February 14, 2008.  The audit, like the study before it, recommended consolidating the various programs. 

City Council Member Janice Hahn wasted no time in responding to the audit by urging adoption of a ballot measure to raise your taxes by $30 million a year for anti-gang programs.

"We've got to spend more money on prevention, intervention, after-school programs, and I think the voters who will come out in November understand that," Hahn said.

The 161-page audit, however, does not support a tax hike.  If Hahn had bothered to read even the first two pages of the report, she would have encountered this sentence about the proposed consolidation of the City’s disjoint programs:

“This new strategy and reorganization will not require additional funding, but will require redirecting existing funds to more targeted programs, eliminating duplication and streamlining programs, and implementing performance-based contracting and monitoring practices.”

Since the audit itself says we do not need higher taxes, let’s hope we can persuade her colleagues in the City Council to decline her proposal to use gangs as a pretext to raise our taxes yet again.