Lawmakers Question LAPD Plan Financing : Police: City Council members from the Valley support Riordan’s proposal to increase the force. But they wonder who will pay for it.

San Fernando Valley lawmakers praised Mayor Richard Riordan’s ambitious plan to hire 2,855 more police officers, but expressed dismay Wednesday at his failure to answer the toughest question--who will pay the price.

“My biggest reaction is, where are we going to get the money?” said Los Angeles City Councilwoman Laura Chick.

Riordan on Wednesday unveiled his long-awaited plan to beef up the police force and fulfill a pledge he made during his campaign for mayor last spring. With 7,600 officers, Los Angeles is one of the most under-policed of the nation’s major metropolitan areas.

The Riordan plan would hire new officers, put more of the LAPD’s existing force on the street for overtime work and move civilians into jobs now held by peace officers--all very costly items.

Except for a $15.3-million price tag to start up the program this year, Riordan provided few other estimates of the cost or of the strategies needed to finance it.

Councilman Hal Bernson predicted that Riordan’s plan will not work unless the city’s budget system is dramatically overhauled. The City Council is incapable of making the tough fiscal choices needed to pay for more cops, Bernson said in an interview.

Bernson, who represents the northwest Valley, has proposed amending the City Charter to require the council to add about 500 additional officers each year for the next five or six years, until the LAPD reaches 10,000 officers. Under the proposal, condemned as too Draconian by some, the council presumably would be forced to slash other departments to meet the annual police-hiring goals.

Bernson’s plan has also failed to catch fire at City Hall. Only last week, the council voted 8 to 5 to send it to committee rather than place it on the ballot.

Bernson himself has vowed to push an initiative, circumventing the council, to force his plan before city voters. To accomplish this, Bernson will need to collect the signatures of 200,073 registered voters.

“I see my plan as consistent with Riordan’s,” Bernson said. “His is a great proposal, but it’s got no teeth. My plan shows how to pay for more police.”

Echoing that mixture of support and dismay were the Valley’s two newest council members, Chick and Richard Alarcon.

“We all know we must have more police, but now we’ve got to go beyond this and start talking about how we pay for them,” Chick said. “I’m discouraged that the discussion never goes this far. But it’s going to take a lot of will and courage, because the issue is unpleasant.”

If lawmakers don’t start to talk about realistic plans for financing more police soon, Chick predicted that a frustrated public will get cynical and mean-spirited.

“They’ll start booing and hissing elected officials who call for hiring more police if they haven’t got a plan to pay for them,” said Chick, who represents the southwest Valley.

Alarcon, who, like Chick, was elected last spring, said the Riordan plan also is disappointing because it does not provide a financing plan.

Alarcon, who represents the East Valley, said he wants to explore ways to get more federal money to pay for police. Alarcon said he wants to find ways around state law that has checkmated four prior attempts to hike property taxes to pay for more police.

Since 1981, Los Angeles city residents have voted in four separate elections on proposals to raise their property taxes to pay for more police. Twice, a majority voted in favor, but because state law requires a two-thirds vote, none of the measures passed. Last spring, a measure to hire 1,000 more police won 59% of the vote, and an identical measure in November, 1992, got 63% of the vote.

But Councilman Joel Wachs saw Riordan’s failure to include a specific funding plan as a shrewd political move.

“It was smart of the mayor to come up with a plan without discussing funding,” said Councilman Joel Wachs, who represents the central Valley. “If he had, everybody would be focused on the funding, who’s going to pay for it?”

Now, Riordan can build support for the plan, and later present lawmakers and the public with the bill, Wachs said.

For the plan to have a chance, the City Council must tame its own spending habits, said Wachs, a sharp critic of the council’s recent vote to grant a 9% pay hike to city Department of Water and Power workers.

“We can’t finance more police if we keep giving away the store with salary increases,” said Wachs. “The biggest test of how serious we are about this will come when the final DWP contract comes to the council for approval.”

In other reaction, Riordan’s plan was endorsed by the United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley.

In a prepared statement, president Bob Scott called the plan “a bold and substantive plan to turn L. A. around.”