Propositions M and N Offer Hope for a Safer L.A. : Police: Hundreds of 911 calls are lost daily. We need a better communications system, more officers to respond to calamity.

I have served as chief of the Los Angeles Police Department for almost four months. Since my inaugural, the one constant refrain I hear is: “Chief Williams, I want to feel safe again in Los Angeles.”

The disturbances last April in the wake of the verdicts in the Rodney King beating case magnified the insecure feeling of Los Angeles residents. Thousands of people discovered during those terrible days that if you call 911, you might not get through. They learned that Los Angeles police officers in need of quick backup can’t depend on the field communication system to link them to their stations, and that they can’t ask for help from neighboring law enforcement agencies like the Sheriff’s Department. They learned that there aren’t enough police officers in Los Angeles available to help in a full-scale emergency.

The 911 and police communications networks for Los Angeles are in crisis. Every day, we lose between 300 and 400 emergency calls. That adds up to a million calls a year. Everyone can imagine the nightmare. You dial 911 in a crisis--a fire, a flood, a heart attack, an intruder--and you get put on hold for 10 minutes, if you can get through at all. In a disaster such as an earthquake, or another civil disturbance, we know from experience that the 911 system, and the entire police communications network, would break down.

The LAPD’s 911 system is housed in a fourth-level sub-basement in City Hall. It could become inaccessible in the event of a major earthquake. It is equipped with only 12 dedicated telephone lines for 911 calls, connected to a computer system that has operated beyond capacity for the entire eight years of its existence. Callers frequently are put on hold or get a busy signal, not just during riots or earthquakes, but virtually every evening.

The Webster Commission’s report on the police response to the April disturbances verified that the failure of police and emergency communications in Los Angeles contributed directly to the destruction of life and property that occurred. At crucial moments, the LAPD could not talk to itself and the public could not reach us. In an enormous city, with a police force that is widely known to be inadequate in size, the failure to communicate meant that the few officers we had available could not be deployed to the highest-priority trouble spots. To make matters worse, Los Angeles suffers from a deficit of police officers on an everyday basis.

Los Angeles’ officers serve with skill, strength and pride every day. But there simply aren’t enough of them. Los Angeles is the nation’s second-largest city, but its police department is one of the smallest in the ratio of officers to population. With our force of 7,900, we have 2.2 officers for every 1,000 people. New York City has more than 27,000 officers, or 3.8 officers per 1,000 people. Chicago has more than 12,400 officers, or 4.1 per 1,000. Detroit and Philadelphia have similar ratios.

Fortunately, the people of this city have an opportunity to correct this dangerous situation and make Los Angeles a safer place. They can vote for Propositions M and N on the Nov. 3 ballot.

Proposition M is a bond measure to finance a new communications system that will meet Los Angeles’ most basic emergency communications needs, including a new police communications, dispatch and 911 center to be located in the San Fernando Valley. The new center will allow us to turn the existing City Hall center into a backup, and upgrade its equipment as well.

Proposition N creates a dedicated trust fund to hire, train and equip 1,000 new uniformed police officers, paid for with a slight increase in the property tax. Combined with other reorganization and redeployment measures, Proposition N will result in an 18% increase in the number of uniformed officers available for patrol. We are going to move ahead with community-based policing in Los Angeles to improve our ability to deter and fight crime. One thousand more new officers will make this approach more effective, increasing the visibility and responsiveness of our police where it really counts.

If both measures pass, the total cost to the typical homeowner will be small--about $85 a year. For the same price, you could buy a telephone answering machine or a six-month subscription to this newspaper. Saving your phone messages or reading about the events of the day are important to daily living. But the feeling and reality of safety are essential.

We have a chance on Nov. 3 to make Los Angeles a safer city. We can effectively move forward with community-based policing by adding the police person-power that can truly make a difference. We can modernize 911 so that it answers our needs, without fail. I urge a “yes” vote on Propositions M and N.