2 Police Stations to Get ATMs : Government: The City Council votes to install the banking devices in the Northridge and Wilshire bureaus on a trial basis. It’s a security measure.

Responding to banking customers’ growing fears about using automated teller machines at night, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to install ATMs at police stations in Northridge and in the Wilshire area.

The proposal by Councilman Hal Bernson calls for installing ATMs at the Devonshire and Wilshire police stations on a trial basis--perhaps for a year--before considering whether to install the machines in all 18 police bureaus citywide.

The idea, originally brought to Bernson by a Van Nuys Municipal Court judge, is intended to provide banking customers a secure site to complete after-hours transactions while giving police a basis for more positive contact with the public.

“It’s a terrific idea because it provides (banking customers) a safe haven,” Bernson said. “It’s my desire to have them installed in all 18 police stations.”

The two ATMs approved Tuesday may be installed and in operation by early next year.

Los Angeles Police Chief Willie Williams supports the program but recognizes that it is only a Band-Aid solution to the city’s overall crime problem, said the chief’s spokesman, Lt. John Dunkin.

“This isn’t an answer to the problem, because you are talking about 18 stations throughout the city,” he said. “You can’t expect everyone to do their banking at the stations.”

The Los Angeles Police Credit Union now operates ATMs at Parker Center in downtown Los Angeles and at the San Fernando Valley headquarters in Van Nuys. However, citizens must check into restricted areas to use those machines.

The automated tellers approved by the City Council will be installed in lobbies accessible to the public and advertised with signs or banners.

The council selected the police credit union to install and maintain the new machines after soliciting proposals from 17 banks and financial institutions. The city’s request for bids received only four offers, including two unsolicited proposals.

Several banks that were asked to submit proposals told city officials that they were reluctant to participate because they feared that the ATMs would not be used often enough to pay for the machines’ installation and maintenance costs. The banks said each ATM must be used at least 100 times per day to break even on the maintenance and installation costs.

But for the credit union, the concern about how often the ATMs are used is “not at the forefront,” said Kimberly Phillips, a spokeswoman for the police credit union. “Our concern has always been to serve our members.”

The credit union has also agreed to pay the city $1,300 per year per site for a lease to operate the machines.

Another reason cited by city officials for selecting the police credit union for the program is that the union has been negotiating a plan to install ATMs in four additional police stations.

Phillips said the credit union will move ahead to install the ATMs at the Devonshire and Wilshire stations by early next year before proceeding with plans to install the other ATMs. She added that the credit union would like to someday install ATMs in the lobbies of all 18 police stations.

The plan for ATMs at police station lobbies was conceived by Van Nuys Judge Michael S. Luros, who made the suggestions in letters to Bernson and police officials after a rash of stabbings and shootings at automated teller machines.

One of the ATM robberies that Luros said persuaded him to suggest the plan involved Sherri Foreman, 29, a pregnant woman who died March 31 after she was stabbed near an ATM in Sherman Oaks by a would-be carjacker. Her 13-week-old fetus did not survive.

Despite the growing concern over ATM crimes, bank officials have downplayed the incidents, saying the number of crimes committed at ATMs remains minuscule relative to the machines’ use.

They cite a 1992 survey by the California Bankers Assn. that found that 499 ATM crimes occurred statewide out of 599 million transactions at 6,677 machines--or one crime per 1.2 million transactions.