E. PALO ALTO COPS NEED BACKUP

LESS than two months into the new year, the news has not been good in East
Palo Alto.

Devastating floods have displaced dozens of residents and ruined homes and
businesses. The city and community have responded heroically, in aiding
waterlogged residents.

More troubling has been the upward spike in violence, contrary to national
trends. Last year, 15 people were killed in the city of 25,000, compared
with just one in 1996. Already this year there have been three homicides.

The blame goes mostly to one unwelcome but thriving business: drugs,
marketed by dealers who have retaken streets they were chased from only a
few years ago.

In response, police agencies have geared up, staging raids, arresting
suspected dealers and displaying confiscated drugs and weapons.

In a hopeful sign, representatives of the city, San Mateo County and the
Sheriff's Department met recently, after months of sniping at each other.

While an arrestathon could sweep the streets clean, coordination and
cooperation between policing agencies are paramount in any fight against
crime.

Hard feelings emerged last year, after problems at the police department
became apparent. Pay is low, turnover is high, and the department is beset
by brutality complaints and disciplinary problems. Sheriff Don Horsley
proposed absorbing the police department, and the county grand jury
supported his idea.

Sheriff's deputies already patrol the city at night, and Horsley's office
provides investigation and dispatching services for the city -- all with a
$1.7 million subsidy by the county.

East Palo Alto leaders accuse the sheriff of trying to take over and
upstage their police. They say he's announced raids without telling them;
he says they never returned his calls. When the sheriff's new East Palo
Alto substation opened to much fanfare last month, only one council member
showed up.

Most residents care little about this rivalry; they just want to be able to
live in peace and safety. Whatever the cause of the friction --
personalities, pride, suspicion and history -- it's time to set those aside
and work toward creating a better, livable
community.

The sheriff's contract with the city expires in June, and the question is
not whether, but on what terms it will be renegotiated.

Horsley's proposal for taking over the police department has some merit,
but it's going nowhere politically. While some in the community would
welcome the sheriff taking police under his wing, others object vehemently.
Having fought hard only 15 years ago for incorporation and
self-determination, East Palo Alto leaders are not about to relinquish
control of their police.

It doesn't matter that the sheriff's department, once widely reviled in the
community, has changed. Nor that the community, once predominantly black
and now with a plurality of Latinos, is different too.

Pride won't permit a county takeover. But it should make room for
cooperation with the sheriff.

It was the sheriff who led the rescue of East Palo Alto, when the city was
under siege by a drug war that claimed 42 lives in 1992. No one else has
offered to supplement the city's police force.

The mayor pushes for community policing and code enforcement. Those ideas
will help the city, but don't address the immediate and pressing need for
more police on the street. The city already strains to pay its understaffed
force. This month it agreed to settle a police sex harassment claim. And it
faces repaying up to $4 million to property owners for a parcel tax that
recently was ruled illegal.

Horsley may be perceived as leading a foreign force, but he was endorsed
unanimously by the East Palo Alto City Council when he first ran for
sheriff five years ago.

The council and the community need to explain their needs. Whether for more
community policing or a departmental reorganization, all ideas need to be
set out in the open and compared.