LANCASTER — Flanked by a phalanx of local leaders and lawmen, state legislators George and Sharon Runner on Tuesday announced a new public safety initiative they hope to have on the November 2008 ballot.

Called the Safe Neighborhoods Act, State Sen. George Runner, R-Lancaster, said the initiative would toughen penalties, crack down on gangs, protect victims and guarantee more state funding for law enforcement.

“There is no higher priority than the protection of citizens,” he said in a press conference on the front steps of the Lancaster Sheriff’s Station. “All of our freedoms depend on our ability to feel safe and secure in our own homes. That’s why public safety is our No. 1 priority.”

George Runner said the initiative, which will require the signatures of more than 400,000 registered voters to be placed on the ballot, is a response to the state’s crime and gang problems, but some Democrats have spoken against the bill, saying it is too expensive and could have unintended consequences.

The Runners described the Safe Neighborhoods Act as a combination of proposals laid out in bills presented in the most recent legislative session, many of which never made it out of committee.

“It’s been frustrating during my five years in the legislature trying to get public safety bills passed,” Sharon Runner said, adding that such bills “rarely receive a fair and balanced hearing in the (public safety) committee” — a claim the committee’s chairman denied.

The initiative calls for new enforcement programs, stiffer sentencing and many other changes, including authorizing county sheriffs to create emergency jail facilities and preventing illegal immigrants arrested for violent crimes from posting bail.

The initiative also:

• Adds a 10-year sentence for felons who carry loaded or concealed firearms in public.
• Increases penalties for multiple acts of graffiti.
• Increases penalties for possession and sale of methamphetamine to the same level as penalties for cocaine.
• Increases penalties for gang recruitment.
• Requires convicted gang members to register with local law enforcement agencies.
• Funds GPS monitoring systems for sex offenders and others.

The bill would also guarantee more state funding for law enforcement, including Section 8 housing investigations.

“We do not continuously fund public safety,” George Runner said. “We need to protect that funding.”

Going into budget negotiations, he said, the state sets aside $600 million in public safety funding, but that money always ends up getting chipped away.

The initiative would require a three-quarters vote of the legislature to move any of that funding and would tack on an additional $340 million in public safety funding, George Runner said.

Capt. Carl Deeley of the Lancaster Sheriff’s Station said worrying about funding is a yearly headache.

“That’s the No. 1 issue I deal with every year,” he said. “We never know if from one year to another that funding is going to be available.”

But the new funding, among other provisions in the initiative, drew fire last week from Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, who said “throwing money at this very serious problem is something California can’t afford.”

In a statement released last Monday, Romero cited opposition by Runner and other Republicans to the state’s most recent budget.

“It is ironic that the proponents of this initiative are my Republican colleagues who held up the state budget this summer demanding cuts, and they are now proposing something that will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars,” she said.

Assemblyman Jose Solorio, D-Santa Ana, chairman of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, also said the bill would be too costly.

“It’s very easily going to cost of $1 billion per year,” he said. “I would challenge anybody as to where we’re going to make the cuts to make that happen.”

He also denied Sharon Runner’s assertion that public safety bills do not get a fair shake in the committee.

“I would say the current public safety committee is very balanced,” he said. “This is the fairest public safety committee we’ve had in years.”

Solorio voted in April to keep four of Sharon Runner’s gang-crime bills in committee, saying they would exacerbate the state’s prison overcrowding.

George Runner said Democrats’ complaints about the initiatives costs are off base.

“$1 billion is less than 1% of the state’s budget,” he said. “If we’re turning our neighborhoods over to gangs, it doesn’t really matter what else we spend our money on.”

He said the state could recover the additional dollars by cutting certain welfare benefits — the same cuts he asked for this summer during prolonged budget negotiations.

Petitions likely will be available in December, and supporters will have four months to collect signatures. About 420,000 are needed to get the initiative on the ballot, but George Runner said about 600,000 signatures will be collected to make sure enough are from registered voters.

Area leaders supporting the bill include attorney R. Rex Parris, Palmdale City Councilman Steve Knight, Lancaster City Councilman Ron Smith and 5th District County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich.

“Our office has been very proactive in supporting anti-gang measures as well as Section 8 abuse,” Antonovich spokesman Tony Bell said. “The supervisor’s pleased that Sen. Runner and Assemblywoman Runner are trying to further these vital efforts.”

jkoren@avpress.com