Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : City Council OKs Sheriff’s Substation Inside Mall : Law enforcement: The Antelope Valley shopping center will share costs with Palmdale. The office will be staffed by community services officers.

The busy Antelope Valley Mall will soon get a Sheriff’s Department substation, with the city and the shopping center sharing the costs.

The Palmdale City Council unanimously approved the idea Thursday night, allocating $55,000 to staff the mall station with two community services officers, who will take theft and vandalism reports and perform other clerical tasks.

The 3-year-old mall, with five large anchor stores and 125 smaller shops, will provide space and pay utility costs for the station.

“I think it’s great,” Mayor James C. Ledford Jr. said. “It serves two purposes. It gives the Sheriff’s Department a presence in the mall, and it gives residents who live on the west side of town a closer place to file reports.”

The community services officers at the mall will be allowed to issue parking citations and arrange for the removal of abandoned vehicles. But when a suspected lawbreaker is present or a dangerous incident occurs, these officers must summon patrol deputies to handle the situation, city officials said.

The substation will be constructed in a 1,000-square-foot storefront near the northeast entrance to the mall. It will be linked to other sheriff’s stations by radio and telephone lines.

The sheriff’s employees will share the space with the mall’s private security guards, who are all off-duty or retired police officers or deputies, said J. Brian Pearson, the mall’s general manager.

He said the Antelope Valley shopping center wanted to follow the example of other malls that have provided space for local law enforcement officers.

“We always wanted to have a neighborhood station here,” Pearson said. “It was always a question of working out the numbers and figuring out a way to do it.”

He said the station will probably be open by March 1.