05/17/05

LC050517

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

The demand for more police officers is high and that means fierce competition for new recruits.

Lt. David Gabriel>> We are reaching crisis levels or at least a crisis point in terms of hiring difficulties and, rather than wait for the train to crash completely after a derailment, we want to make sure and try to fix this problem before it gets there.

Val>> And then, where can you see shows that are definitely not ready for prime time? We get a peek inside The Other Network.

It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> Putting more cops on the beat seems like a simple task. Just hire, train and deploy them, right? Well, in fact, there is stiff competition for the best applicants and cities compete with each other for the same pool of candidates, and as Sam Louie tells us, that has forced the LAPD to spend a lot of money and use some slick Hollywood production techniques to attract potential police officers.

Sam Louie>> To Protect and To Serve is the well-known motto of the Los Angeles Police Department. These days, the LAPD must also learn to promote and to recruit. No one knows that better than Lieutenant Art Miller. He works in recruitment and realizes it's a different job market compared to when he first started twenty-seven years ago.

Lieutenant Art Miller>> Well, I think recruitment in general in law enforcement across the nation is very difficult. We're all hiring from the same pool. We're all seeking that same candidate. In the Los Angeles area with a goal of hiring seven hundred twenty officers over the next fiscal year, it makes it difficult because we're competing with large agencies in the Southern California area as well as throughout the state.

Sam Louie>> To get those seven hundred twenty officers, the LAPD will have to recruit a huge number of candidates, more than fourteen thousand, so the department is employing some creative recruitment tactics like this pitch.

Announcer>> "For the officers of the LAPD, it's all in a day's work."

Sam Louie>> The city recently spent five hundred thousand dollars to make and market three short, but slick, recruitment pitches coming to a theater near you.

Announcer>> "In the city of Los Angeles, when duty calls, the LAPD responds."

Sam Louie>> The trailer depicts three different scenarios. One involves a kidnapped girl.

Announcer>> "We have a critical missing. There is an Amber Alert, so let's look for any information you get."

Sam Louie>> Another shows a family disturbance.

[Film Clip]

Sam Louie>> The final clip is a tense standoff.

[Film Clip]

Lieutenant Art Miller>> What it shows, again, it's a day in the life of a pair of LAPD officers that shows not only the excitement of the job, but the uncertainty of the job. It also shows the diversity of the city.

Sam Louie>> But one promotional campaign is not enough, especially when half the applicants will be disqualified during their background checks.

Lieutenant Art Miller>> It is a constant pressure that is put on the recruitment section, that I put on the officers, to have them understand that we need to, on a continuous basis, go out and recruit the most qualified candidates so that we can fill our Academy classes.

Sam Louie>> To do this, the department has eased some of its criteria. Gone are the height and weight requirements as well as the forty year old upper age limit. The department also offers a flexible work schedule.

Lieutenant Art Miller>> Depending on your assignment, you can work three twelve-hour days, you can work four ten-hour days or you can work a conventional forty hour work week.

Sam Louie>> The three-day work schedule has been controversial, but when it comes to recruiting candidates, it's an attractive recruiting tool.

Announcer>> "The LAPD is hiring. Become a part of the team. Visit us at joinLAPD.com."

Sam Louie>> A new website is another way to attract candidates, essential in this computer age.

Lieutenant Art Miller>> You can go online and take a sample test of what the Civil Service test might be like.

Sam Louie>> Lieutenant Miller says his department will even go to colleges and job fairs with tests in hand.

Lieutenant Art Miller>> It does streamline the process. It makes it more convenient for them and, if we want to be competitive in today's job market, these are some of the tactics that we will use and they are very effective for us.

Sam Louie>> Large police departments aren't the only ones having a challenging time finding qualified applicants. Here in Burbank, the department has been trying to fill twelve officer positions since the beginning of this year. That job falls to Lieutenant David Gabriel in the Recruitment and Personnel section for Burbank Police.

Lieutenant David Gabriel>> We've noticed that we are reaching crisis levels or at least a crisis point in terms of hiring difficulties and, rather than wait for the train to crash completely after a derailment, we want to make sure and try to fix this problem before it gets there.

Sam Louie>> In the past year and a half, the Burbank Police Department began an innovative approach to deal with the shortage.

Lieutenant David Gabriel>> We've had the cable television program that we talk about recruiting. We've had signs put up on bus bench shelters. Our media center mall has a banner. We're going to a very large job fair in Los Angeles.

Sam Louie>> Burbank Police also offers generous signing bonuses up to five thousand dollars to new officers.

Lieutenant David Gabriel>> Drastic times call for drastic measures, so we put a lot of time and money and creativity into figuring out ways to attract candidates.

Sam Louie>> Like Los Angeles, Burbank Police made changes to its requirements. They've relaxed portions of their physical and written exams.

Lieutenant David Gabriel>> They had things to do with memory exercises that an applicant would have to look, for instance, at a page of a car with different items in it and turn the page over and, within a minute, have to describe what was in that car. So the memory sections are gone.

Sam Louie>> Gabriel acknowledges the changes give applicants a better chance of passing, but insists they do not compromise the integrity or quality of his department.

Lieutenant David Gabriel>> The testing elements that were eliminated were non-necessary elements, according to the state of California.

[Film Clip]

Sam Louie>> Officer Derek Green is one of Burbank's newest hires.

Officer Derek Green>> I don't think there's another job out there like it. It's pretty unique in the sense that it's something new every day. You don't know what's going to happen.

Sam Louie>> Green says Burbank was his first choice because it's the city where he grew up.

Officer Derek Green>> It's a city where every little move you make, every job you do out here on the streets on patrol, has a direct impact on the community and is highly appreciated by the community.

Sam Louie>> While Green appreciates the close-knit feel of Burbank and the incentives offered by his department, he also realizes that's not enough for many of today's younger generation.

Officer Derek Green>> More than ever these days, the younger age bracket, my age group, the twenties, is more concerned with the money than the love of the job. And the money's not cutting it, so it's not luring as many people in.

Sam Louie>> In Burbank, the top pay scale for an experienced officer is $65,000 a year, but money isn't the only consideration for new recruits.

Lieutenant David Gabriel>> Younger folks tend to understand priorities of balancing family and recreation with vocation.

Sam Louie>> Another recruitment obstacle? Accusations of police brutality.

[Film Clip]

Sam Louie>> A series of controversial beatings, shootings and scandals over the years have put police in a negative light.

Lieutenant David Gabriel>> The police departments are responsible for their own messes and their own problems. I think the media has also tended to sensationalize problems within the law enforcement community or action that police officers have taken. I think, taken together, all of that has painted a little bit of a dim view of police officers in their work and a negative viewpoint in general. I think it kind of scares a few applicants away that we normally might have gotten.

Sam Louie>> And even after finding candidates, getting them through training and graduating a new class of officers, there's still the possibility other cities will try to woo them away.

Jeff Jensen>> You know, we'll get you right through the process and, you know, we'll get you through backgrounds and, you know, since you've already been through LAPD backgrounds, that shouldn't be that big of a deal. Yeah, that type of stuff (laughter).

Brian Frieson>> They try to lure you away and say they'll get you on the fast track, hired within, but in the end, I knew I wanted to be in Los Angeles.

Sam Louie>> Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn and Police Chief Bill Bratton have promised to put more qualified officers on the street. But as long as there is fierce competition for qualified candidates, that promise will be hard to fulfill. I'm Sam Louie for Life and Times.

Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life and Times".

Toni Guinyard>> They have been polled by pollsters and courted by mayoral candidates and now it's time for the nearly 1.5 million registered voters in the city of Los Angeles to finally decide who is going to be sitting in the Mayor's seat at City Hall. We spoke with political analyst, Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, who says, as always, voter apathy is going to be a big issue.

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> My goodness, this is a critical election one way or another. We're either going to see an incumbent mayor fight his way back from being the underdog and risking being the first incumbent mayor in over thirty years to be defeated, or we're going to see the election of the first Latino mayor of the city of Los Angeles in modern times. In both cases, it's a pretty historic election.

Toni Guinyard>> But it seems as if the only people who are interested in that are those people inside city politics or on the fringe of city politics. What about the average person? Do they really care?

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well, I don't think that the average person really cares a whole lot and I think that we can't be too nasty about it where they're concerned. It seems to me the average voter looks at both of those candidates and sees very little difference in their issue stands.

Toni Guinyard>> Both Democrats.

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Both Democrats, both liberal, both supported by labor. In most issues, there is very little daylight between the views of both the candidates. So what has happened in this campaign is, because they can't get at one another on issues, they're getting at one another on character, on questions of campaign financing, on questions of ethics. You are seeing negative campaigning. You're seeing the mud flying back and forth over the airwaves and negative campaigning does tend to dissuade voters, does tend to leave a bit of a sour taste.

Toni Guinyard>> Yet in the past few days and past few hours, what we've seen are both Mayor Hahn and Council member Villaraigosa going from community to community and downright wooing different segments of the voting block, African-Americans, Latinos. Does it really pay off in the end?

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> This election, as every election ever had, will come down to turnout, how large or how low the turnout is, and what that turnout looks like. So each of the candidates now must not only mobilize his base, but reach out to those undecided and independent voters. They may be a very small percentage now, but my sense is this is a very close election. You've got to pull the independents. You've got to pull the undecideds. You've got to convince them as a candidate that you're better than your opponent. That's what's going on now.

Toni Guinyard>> But even at the last minute? The eleventh hour? Does it really make a difference?

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Yeah. Even if it didn't, it's -- way back before electricity, Toni, there was a tradition of candidates going to bed at a fairly decent hour on election eve, getting up and voting and then hiding, just not coming out until the votes were beginning to be counted and there was a trend. With elections now being so close, by and large, with the electorate being so fragmented, with the electorate being so turned off by getting out to vote, no candidate can risk a breath in private before the polls close.

Toni Guinyard>> A lot of attention has been paid to these coalitions or perceived coalitions being built. Is there something to it from your perspective?

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Los Angeles politics is all about coalition politics. We've seen it from way back. I mean, in 1973, Tom Bradley put together a coalition of black voters, Jewish voters, liberal voters, west side voters, and he won. He ousted an incumbent mayor, Sam Yorty. We saw it in 1993 with Richard Riordan. He put together a coalition of Latino voters and Valley voters and Republicans and Moderates to Conservatives, and he won the election and he maintained the seat. And it happened in 2001 when Jim Hahn put together that odd bedfellows coalition of black voters and Valley voters, white voters, Moderates, Conservatives and Republicans.

We are beginning to see a shift in that coalition, but now the black vote is split between Hahn and Villaraigosa. Villaraigosa is reaching out to the black community, is reaching out to the west side community in which he was strong before, is reaching out to more Moderate voters and this election will come down to coalitions and whether or not Jim Hahn can win back the Valley voters who have been angry with him since he assumed the leadership of the anti-secession movement, whether or not he can win back some of the black voters who have been angry at him since he did not give Chief Bernard Parks a second term.

The one thing we haven't discussed with regard to turnout is this: passion, fervor. Will it be those Republicans and Conservatives who may be, shall we say, nervous about the possibility of a very powerful Latino mayor? A mayor who is likely in their perspective to be more favorable to illegal immigrants? Will it be Latinos who are proud and understand the symbolism of a Latino mayor to come out? Will it be black voters who come out and will they be angry at Hahn? Or will they remember dad? Will they not be angry at Hahn? Those voters with the deepest passion and the greatest fervor are likely to come out to vote.

Toni Guinyard>> Buy by saying there is going to be some kind of underlying passion, you're in a sense counting on the racial issues here to decide who's going to be mayor?

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> That's only one factor in passion. There is an ideological passion. To some extent, there is a partisan passion. That's particularly true among Republicans who really don't have a horse in this race, so they're going to be looking at whether or not it's worth the effort to come out and choose between these two Democrats and they're going to be looking at which of these two Democrats appear to be closer to their point of view. Ethnicity is a factor, but, whoa, ethnicity is always a factor in Los Angeles politics and will always be a factor in Los Angeles politics.

Toni Guinyard>> Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, it's always a pleasure talking to you and we'll check in with you tomorrow to find out if you're right on target or not.

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> That's a deal. Okay.

To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

Life and Times
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Val>> What happens to those failed TV pilots that never go anywhere? Well, in fact, they do go somewhere. They are born again, you might say, on something called The Other Network. As Vicki Curry tells us, some of these programs have gathered an unexpected audience.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> It's a Friday evening in Hollywood and a club called The Knitting Factory is opening up for another night of shows, but tonight people aren't coming to see a performer. They're coming to watch television.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> This is The Other Network, a sort of festival for television pilots that never made it on air.

Beth Lapides>> They're different, unusual. These are shows that break the mold in some way. This is often why they're not made.

>> "I made a pilot called Next. It turns out they didn't like it."

[Film Clip]

>> "I'm going to show it to you and, if you think it's funny, would you please apply for a job running the Fox network?"

Vicki Curry>> Performer Beth Lapides and her partner, Greg Miller, created The Other Network in 2002.

Beth Lapides>> And we got the idea because we had a pilot that we wanted to show and so did a lot of our friends.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> Those friends include some big names in show business like Ben Stiller, Conan O'Brien and Bob Odenkirk, and they've all made TV shows that have never been seen.

[Film Clip]

Beth Lapides>> A lot of the writers and producers who present their work are -- it's an emotional experience for them because this thing has been sitting in their closet collecting dust. Look, this is what TV could be. We love TV, you love TV. Through group energy, perhaps TV can evolve.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> Every year, the television networks make nearly two hundred pilots, but only about a third of them get aired.

Beth Lapides>> The network doesn't have that much time. They might have eight shows. They might like three of them the best. They might not have a night for that show. There's a lot of smart people in television, just a lot of the best stuff, because of the system, is not getting on.

[Film Clip]

Vicki Curry>> The show creators agree. The business of television isn't about putting on high-quality shows. David Steinberg should know. He's an industry veteran. A long-time comic, he's now a writer and director of sitcoms like "Friends" and "Seinfeld". But even Steinberg has a failed pilot.

[Film Clip]

David Steinberg>> There's no category that you could put it in and it's not easy for an executive to commit to. As much as they say to bring us your new themes, give us the edge, show us, the original themes are the hardest things to get on the air and especially if you put them through focus groups. Every time you try to do something original, you might get the pilot, but you won't necessarily get on the air.

[Film Clip]

Beth Lapides>> You can't make a great television show without risk-taking. One thing that makes these shows always interesting, if not always totally a hundred percent successful, is risk-taking.

Peter Mehlman>> You know, they're so averse to taking any kind of risks and what is a risk?

Vicki Curry>> Peter Mehlman was a writer on "Seinfeld" and later took a risk when he set a TV pilot in Mesopotamia.

Peter Mehlman>> There's an air of desperation in the networks because there is so much competing media. It's a cancellation minefield to put on a good show now and there are so many things that could torpedo your show. If your show is really good and it's a success, somehow it's like it just fell through the cracks of destruction that are all around you. You know, there are destructive forces everywhere around you and somehow they missed.

Ben Stiller>> "I'm Ben Stiller. In 1992, I had a show here on Fox. They ridiculed me for my effort. I was cancelled. Then I won this. It's called an Emmy."

Peter Mehlman>> The destructive forces against a show now are overzealous network people who are, you know, much too involved in the creative process.

[Film Clip]

Peter Mehlman>> There is too much influence of advertisers. There is too much influence of various pressure groups, you know, conservative pressure groups or whatever. There is too much political correctness. It's very tough. That's another thing that just destroys shows.

[Film Clip]

David Steinberg>> You get shows that are just flukes when they're good because so many people micro-manage your show.

[Film Clip]

David Steinberg>> Network executives only need hits. They don't care what level the hit is. You know, again, if it's a department store and they're selling stuff in the basement and selling more than the elegant stuff on top, it doesn't matter as long as something is working.

Vicki Curry>> That's why The Other Network stepped in to show viewers what they're missing.

Beth Lapides>> Well, I think audiences are hungry for something different. We love TV. I know there are a lot of people who love TV. I think that there is a hunger for different stories and there's a hunger for different ways of doing television.

Vicki Curry>> And the show creators are just as hungry to share their work with an audience.

Peter Mehlman>> You know, the great thing about The Other Network is that it gives you a little bit of a forum for other people to see your stuff and for you to be reassured that you're not out of your mind.

David Steinberg>> It's incredible. There are so many great pilots that no one has ever seen. The term "failed pilot" is no longer a disparaging term.

Peter Mehlman>> Everyone says that success has a million friends. In this town, failure has so many more friends.

[Film Clip]

Val>> And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times --

It's all over except the counting. We'll hear from Los Angeles's next mayor about how he plans to put the rancor of the campaign behind and make the city a better place.

James Hahn>> I don't think there's anything that is more important to your quality of life than feeling safe.

Antonio Villaraigosa>> This election will be about what has happened in the last four years or what hasn't happened in the last four years.

Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.