Academy Staying Put

Once and for all, can we please set the record straight? The Los Angeles Police Department has no plans, and will never have any plans, to expand the grounds of the police academy in Elysian Park. Perhaps, if (Sam Hall) Kaplan would have checked with the department before he wrote his column (March 19), it would not have contained so much erroneous information.

A major fact Kaplan missed was that in 1972 the issue of moving the academy out of the park went before city voters. The enormous expense of moving the academy and of not having a facility centrally located were extensively debated. The result was that voters decided the academy should stay at the same location it had occupied since 1935.

The article also failed to include the fact that no city official, elected or otherwise, can act to have the current site enlarged. To add more acreage would require the matter to be placed on the ballot for voter approval. I seriously doubt that would ever happen. It is also important to note that the proposed academy remodeling would, should Proposition 2 garner two-thirds voter approval this month, be less intrusive upon the surrounding community because the parking will be underground and the pistol ranges indoors and soundproof.

GREGORY R. BERG

Los Angeles

Sam Hall Kaplan replies:

Capt. Berg is correct. The Police Department has no plans on record to expand the grounds of the Police Academy in Elysian Park. What the department wants is to expand the academy itself, tripling its size to an estimated 224,000 square feet, according to preliminary plans.

That includes increasing the parking from 400 spaces to 1,000 spaces in a two- and three-story structure. Because of unstable soil conditions, the parking facility would not be built underground.

It must be obvious that such an expansion, costing about $40 million of the $176-million bond issue to construct, will have an impact on Elysian Park.