Across the state

ARCATA — This small coastal city is dipping its small toe into national politics once again.

For the second year, the Arcata City Council passed a resolution demanding the impeachment or resignation of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, citing violations of international and constitutional law. The resolution passed Wednesday with a split vote, 3-2.

The resolution lists allegedly impeachable offenses, such as misleading the American people and Congress into waging war in Iraq, failing to respond adequately to the Hurricane Katrina disaster, torturing human beings in violation of the Geneva Convention and ordering the secret surveillance of Americans.

All elected officials are sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution, said Councilman Dave Meserve, co-sponsor of the resolution. "This obligates us to act when the president violates the Constitution,” he said. White House spokesman Ken Lisaius said Bush understands that there are people who oppose his policies, but "recognizes he has a responsibility and the constitutional authority to protect our country and that’s what he will continue to do.”

LA’s major crime

rate dips 14 percent

LOS ANGELES — The city’s major crime rate dropped 14 percent last year, making Los Angeles the second-safest large city in the country, the Police Department said Thursday.

"You’d have to look back to 1956 to find a comparable crime rate for Los Angeles,” Police Chief William Bratton said in a statement.

The city had a reported 140,601 major crimes last year, according to police statistics. By comparison, the city had more than 300,000 major crimes in 1992, one of its most violent years.

According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, Los Angeles moved ahead of San Diego but remained behind New York as the safest among the nation’s 10 largest cities.

Violent crime dipped 26.8 percent last year compared to 2004, police said. However, that reduction was due, in part, to a change in how the Police Department reports domestic violence to the federal government.

The LAPD narrowed its definition of aggravated assault to comply with federal guidelines. That meant excluding the least serious domestic violence — known as simple assaults — from its statistics.

Aggravated assaults fell 40 percent from 2004 but the figure did not include 1,450 simple assaults.

No adjusted figure was released.

The LAPD said there were 487 reported homicides, down 6 percent from 518 in 2004. That was better than comparable nationwide statistics, which showed a 2.1-percent increase in the homicide rate, police said.

Rapes fell 16.3 percent. The other categories of so-called Part I crimes — robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, burglary from a vehicle, personal and other theft and auto theft — also showed declines.

Bratton said the declines are especially significant because the department has only about one officer for every 426 residents, while New York City’s ratio is roughly half that figure.

The number of Los Angeles police officers has remained steady at about 9,200 for five years. The department would need nearly 17,000 officers to meet the same officer-to-resident ratio as New York, the LAPD said.

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