Money is a very real factor when it comes to community safety, be it paying for more cops or things like bridge repairs.
Money is only a factor when it's a factor.
I am sure you were trying to make some sort of point, but I don't see what it is. Money is ALWAYS a factor when it comes to paying for things like police protection.
Like Major League Baseball arguing on one hand that they ought to be exempt from the anti-trust regulations that govern other businesses because they are special and arguing on the other hand that they should be allowed to relocate franchises because they are a business like every other business -- money is not a factor until the man wants us to believe it is a factor.
Two hundred and fifty miles are less than 4% of the total 6700 miles of streets and roads that LA maintains. Covering 4% of the roads will do little to end "global warming", but at $40K per mile, it will cost them $10 million dollars.
If there is enough of other people's money to spend on fashionable projects -- when they are a quarter of a billion in the red -- then money for police and fire is not a factor.
https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/03/13/budget-politics
Budget Politics
By Dr. Thomas Sowell
March 5, 2013
At the local level, the first response to budget cuts is often to cut the police department and the fire department. There may be all sorts of wasteful boondoggles that could have been cut instead, but that would not produce the public alarm that reducing police protection and fire protection can produce. And public alarm is what can get budget cuts restored ...