Lakewood City Council endorses Prop. 36

Published on September 25, 2024

At their Sept. 24 evening meeting, the Lakewood City Council voted to endorse Prop. 36, which will be on the statewide ballot this November. 

Prop. 36 will reinstate tougher penalties and accountability for theft and shoplifting (especially organized group shoplifting and multiple shoplifting by the same person) and will also toughen the penalties for the use and sale of the most dangerous drugs, such as heroin, cocaine and the new and dangerous drug of fentanyl.

“Having penalties in place for the dealing and use of these highly addictive and dangerous drugs is key to giving prosecutors and judges the ability to tell an addict that they either have to go to treatment…or go to jail,” said City Manager Thaddeus McCormack. “Prosecutors and judges used to have that ability. But over the past 10 years, the criminal justice system has lost that tool to motivate people who have fallen prey to drug addiction to get the help they need, and we see the results on our streets and in a rise in property crimes in our city and across our state.”

Public opinion polls show that over 70% of Californians are in favor of Prop 36. The Lakewood City Council joins a number of other cities that have endorsed the measure, as well as major coalitions of cities such as the League of California Cities and the California Contract Cities Association.

In other action, the council also approved the creation of a Joint Powers Authority devoted to public safety programs that would be formed with two neighboring cities—Bellflower and Paramount. 

The purpose of the JPA is to partner on certain supplementary public safety programs to maximize the cities’ collective efforts and seek cost efficiencies in the process.

“We already engage in multi-city collaborations for public safety programs like Sky Knight, a community prosecutor, and a homeless services outreach staff person,” said Lakewood Public Safety Director Joshua Yordt. “So this is building on that longstanding, successful practice in Lakewood.

“We want to be clear that this is not in any way an effort to create our own police department separate from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department,” said Yordt. “Lakewood has a long and very cooperative history with the Sheriff’s Department. But some of the smaller public safety programs we might explore with this JPA include emergency management preparedness, traffic safety, and expanding on our homeless services, community prosecutor work, and civilian public safety officer programs to supplement and enhance what we do with Sheriff’s personnel.”

“Both of these initiatives—Proposition 36 and the JPA—are efforts by our city to continue to do everything we can to prioritize public safety in Lakewood and make us one of the safest communities in our region,” said McCormack.