April 15--Responding to a spike in violent crime, Mayor Eric Garcetti plans to double the size of the Los Angeles Police Department's elite Metropolitan Division and create a new community-policing division within the department, he announced in his State of the City speech Tuesday night.
Garcetti will also announce potentially controversial plans in the digital sector: Applying hotel taxes to the popular vacation-rental website Airbnb and allowing the ride-sharing services Uber and Lyft to pick up customers at the L.A. airport. The companies are currently strictly limited in the service they provide at the airport.
The addition of 200 new officers to the Metropolitan Division -- an at-large force of police officers including the SWAT team, K-9 unit and mounted cops -- comes in response to statistics that show a steep increase in rates of serious crime.
Last month, the department reported a 27% rise in violent crime and 12% increase in property crime compared to the same period last year.
"As long as I'm your mayor, I won't duck bad news," Garcetti said. "I'm going to own it."
It was not immediately clear exactly which types of officers would be added in the Metropolitan Division, or whether they and the officers that will form the community-policing division will be new hires or officers reassigned from other positions in the department.
Garcetti also plans to double the number of domestic violence response teams operating within the department, he said.
Delivered at Cal State Northridge, in the heart of the area most affected by the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, Garcetti's speech also drew attention to his efforts to mandate seismic retrofitting for unsafe buildings and his campaign to persuade L.A. residents to curtail their water use.
"I hope this earthquake will not happen during my time as mayor, and god willing, not in our lifetimes at all," Garcetti said. "But it will happen. It's overdue."
Garcetti also promised to add $10 million to the city's affordable housing trust fund. Half of that money, he said, would come from the new taxes levied on Airbnb.
Return to latimes.com for updates throughout the speech, which will begin streaming at 5 p.m. at lamayor.org/sotc and lacityview.org.
