Skip to main content
Donate

City Council Renames Some LAPD Reserve Classes, Eliminates Stipend

By David Markland
July 19, 2011
Support Provided By
lapdreservecorps.JPG

The Los Angeles City Council today passed a measure changing the title of Specialist Reserve Officers (SROs) to Specialist Volunteers, and eliminating a $15 per deployment stipend. 

SROs assist police with computer forensics, graphic design, and other special skills, but do not wear a uniform and have no powers of arrest.

"It's a fantastic idea - it clarifies what they do," said Eric Rose, a Level I Reserve Officer, on the renaming of specialist volunteers.  The other classes of LAPD Reserve Officers, Levels I thru III, receive the same training as full time police officers and fill many of the same roles, but on a part time, volunteer basis.

Councilman Mitch Englander (CD12), who also serves as a reserve officer, told KCET that he "truly respects the efforts" of SROs, and that he believed identifying them as volunteers would allow people to better recognize their efforts. "We couldn't be one of the biggest safe cities without them," he said.

Englander called the $15 stipend an insult compared to the time and effort the specialists contribute. "They don't do it for the money," he said, adding, "It costs more to process a $15 check than to write one." 

According to the measure that City Council passed today by consent, cutting the stipend would save the city $79,755 annually.

The measure will not affect the stipend for uniformed reserve officers, who receive as much as $50 per deployment to help cover expenses, which includes the cost of purchasing and maintaining their uniforms. The LAPD has has 13 deployment months in a calendar year.

Support Provided By
Read More
An oil pump painted white with red accents stands mid-pump on a dirt road under a blue, cloudy sky with a green, grassy slope in the background.

California’s First Carbon Capture Project: Vital Climate Tool or License to Pollute?

California’s first attempt to capture and sequester carbon involves California Resources Corp. collecting emissions at its Elk Hills Oil and Gas Field, and then inject the gases more than a mile deep into a depleted oil reservoir. The goal is to keep carbon underground and out of the atmosphere, where it traps heat and contributes to climate change. But some argue polluting industries need to cease altogether.
By Alejandro Lazo, CalMatters
Gray industrial towers and stacks rise up from behind the pitched roofs of warehouse buildings against a gray-blue sky, with a row of yellow-gold barrels with black lids lined up in the foreground to the right of a portable toilet.

California Isn't on Track To Meet Its Climate Change Mandates. It's Not Even Close.

According to the annual California Green Innovation Index released by Next 10 last week, California is off track from meeting its climate goals for the year 2030, as well as reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.
By Alejandro Lazo, CalMatters
A row of cows stands in individual cages along a line of light-colored enclosures, placed along a dirt path under a blue sky dotted with white puffy clouds.

A Battle Is Underway Over California’s Lucrative Dairy Biogas Market

California is considering changes to a program that has incentivized dairy biogas, to transform methane emissions into a source of natural gas. Neighbors are pushing for an end to the subsidies because of its impact on air quality and possible water pollution.
By Emma Foehringer Merchant, Inside Climate News