L.A. Considers Diverting Bond Funds to Hire Police : Finances: Councilwoman questions plan involving DWP land. Voters had OKd money for LAPD facilities.

Los Angeles city officials are considering a plan that would divert millions of dollars intended for new police facilities to the city’s general fund, where the money would help pay for hiring additional officers--effectively circumventing a voter-approved bond measure but furthering Mayor Richard Riordan’s campaign pledge to expand the LAPD.

Under a proposal being discussed by Riordan’s office, the LAPD and the city’s Department of Water and Power, the Police Department would pay about $6 million for a 44-acre parcel near the Los Angeles Reservoir. That parcel is owned by the DWP. That agency is asking that the Police Department pay market value for the land, which would become an emergency vehicle training center.

Police Department officials are balking, however, because they say they had a gentlemen’s agreement with the DWP to get the property for $1 a year--an assertion disputed Monday by a DWP spokesman.

“For whatever reason, that offer does not appear to be on the table anymore,” said Assistant Chief Frank Piersol, who heads the LAPD’s Office of Administrative Services. “We’re scrambling to see what we can do.”

If the LAPD agrees to pay the $6-million price tag--a sum that Councilwoman Laura Chick describes in a motion to be introduced today as astronomical--water and power officials say the money would be forwarded to the city’s general fund as part of the DWP’s increased contribution to help pay for the mayor’s Public Safety Plan. That plan, the blueprint for LAPD expansion, is the centerpiece of Riordan’s Administration.

The net effect of the deal between the two city departments would be that $6 million of bond money--funds approved strictly for the construction of new police facilities--would go toward the hiring of new police officers while forcing the cancellation of several proposed expansion projects. The $176-million bond approved by voters in April, 1989, does not authorize expenditures for hiring new officers, only for building new facilities.

Asked for comment Monday, the Riordan Administration issued a short statement read by Jane Galbraith, the mayor’s deputy press secretary: “When this measure was passed in 1989, we had a different mayor, a different chief of police, a different head of the DWP and a different council. But this is 1994, and Councilwoman Chick’s motion (to review the proposed deal) will promote a healthy discussion about the most prudent use of these police facility bond funds.”

Mike Moore, the DWP’s director of public and employee communications, said he did not consider the transaction unusual and noted that the DWP has been asked to increase its transfers to the city general fund to help pay for the mayor’s Public Safety Plan--the blueprint for LAPD expansion.

“This year, there’s an additional $75 million being transferred based on efforts . . . to generate money to help fund the public safety program,” Moore said. “Part of that transfer is being able to sell that property.”

But Chick, a member of the council’s Public Safety Committee, discovered details of the proposed deal last week and has raised questions about it in a motion to be introduced today. That motion accuses the DWP of changing its position about turning over the property for $1 a year and expresses concern that the deal may not be in the city’s best interest.

“While it is important that the city’s land assets work prudently for the taxpayers, it is equally important that city departments work together to ensure taxpayers’ money is put to the highest and best use,” the motion states. “In this case, the proposed use of bond funds to purchase land from another city agency that could be leased at a nominal cost will force other police facility improvements to be cut from the voter-approved” bond measure.

Among the projects that could be jeopardized by the DWP deal and other proposals involving the bond money are expansion of the detective room at the West Valley police station and a similar improvement at the LAPD’s Harbor Division. A new parking structure for the Van Nuys station and improvements to the Los Angeles Police Academy could be shelved as well, department officials said.

The abrupt increase in the anticipated cost of the land has irritated Police Department leaders, who complain that the decisions were beyond their control and emanate from the mayor’s office and the DWP.

“Several items that have cost the bond fund millions of dollars, and eroded the savings, result from decisions by other city agencies over which the (Police) Department has no control,” states a confidential memorandum from Police Chief Willie L. Williams to the Police Commission dated Oct. 24. “There is a conscious effort to use bond fund money to fund activities and acquisitions that previously were considered general fund responsibilities.”

Although the debate with DWP tops the list of Police Department gripes about the use of funds from the 1989 bond, it is not the only matter of contention. According to Police Department estimates, savings from a cheaper-than-expected recruit training center amount to more than $20 million, but those savings have been eroded, bit by bit, through a series of funding decisions made by the mayor’s office.

Modular furniture that police officials expected the city to pay for now will be funded by the bond, as will the addition of several new employees who will oversee various construction projects now under way. The furniture alone is expected to cost $3.8 million, and the various projects together are estimated to eat up the entire $25 million in savings from the recruit center and other projects that are coming in under budget.

But of all the decisions, none has bigger cost implications than the handling of the DWP deal.

Based on what they felt was a promise of essentially free land, the Police Department intended to launch construction of its training center soon. That stalled after police officials learned of the proposal to charge $6 million for the property, indirectly funding Mayor Riordan’s LAPD expansion plan.

Although LAPD officials welcome money for hiring, they complain that the department’s facilities already are too worn to accommodate more officers without improvements, and they grumble that the plan puts political expediency over sound planning. As a result, some LAPD officials hope the council will block the plan.

In his memo, Williams wrote: “Since several council members are anxious to see police facility needs in their respective districts met, the department might have an opportunity to request the reversal of some of the decisions that have eroded the savings when the council deliberates the expenditure plan.”

Chick’s motion may provide a forum for the Police Department to lobby against the deal, which officials said will probably be debated by the council’s Public Safety Committee.

Chick was not available Monday to comment on her motion, but it calls for LAPD officials to deliver a report to the Public Safety Committee outlining projects that they hope to build with the bond money, savings that they have amassed from other projects and the priority for cutting any projects that may be in jeopardy, among other things.

Her motion also asks the DWP to report on its negotiations with the Police Department to determine whether the proposed $6-million sale is “an appropriate transaction and in the best interest of the city.”

At the Department of Water and Power, however, Moore said the proposed deal is not unusual. Moreover, he accused LAPD officials of inaccurately portraying the talks between the two departments, stressing that no deal ever existed for the DWP to turn over its land for $1 a year.

“That’s not the case,” Moore said. “They had proposed something like that, but we never agreed to it.”

Leaders of the LAPD and the DWP, along with representatives of the mayor’s office, have been meeting privately in recent weeks to settle their differences. But so far no agreement has been struck.

“We are still in negotiations with the mayor’s office and the DWP,” said Cmdr. David Kalish of the LAPD. “It’s going to be the mayor’s call.”