Hayward Chief to Head Police Hiring Effort : Crime: Clinton names ‘top cop’ and says addition of officers can begin. But House Republicans vow to replace newly passed program with block grants.

President Clinton named Hayward Police Chief Joseph E. Brann on Monday to direct the effort to put 100,000 new police officers on the nation’s streets, even as House Republicans vowed to drastically overhaul the program.

At a Justice Department ceremony with all the trappings of a campaign appearance--uniformed police lined up before a giant American flag--Clinton announced that 631 departments have been told to go ahead with hiring 4,688 officers while their applications totaling $327 million are pending.

The jurisdictions include the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, with $3,675,000 for 49 deputies; the San Diego Police Department, with $3,525,000 for 47 officers; the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, with $750,000 for 10 deputies, and the Pasadena Police Department, with $450,000 for six officers.

Clinton, declaring that “this is a very happy day for the people of the United States,” praised Brann as America’s “top cop” and saluted his advocacy of community policing, in which officers try to get to know residents of their precinct and win cooperation by solving problems not usually thought of as police concerns.

Brann, Hayward chief for nearly five years, served in the Santa Ana Police Department for 21 years, rising to the rank of patrol and administrative captain.

“It’s time to make community policing the American way of law enforcement,” Brann said. “We must have a national community policing compact that brings us together to fight crime--as chiefs and officers, citizens and leaders, and Republicans and Democrats.”

Clinton and Atty. Gen. Janet Reno condemned efforts by the Republicans, with their newly won majorities in the House and Senate, to replace the so-called COPS (community-oriented policing services) program in the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1994 with block grants that would lessen federal control over the funds.

“I don’t think we should turn back on the progress we have made,” Clinton told an audience of mayors, police chiefs and sheriffs, and members of Congress involved in passing the anti-crime package. Justice Department officials and attorneys rounded out the crowd. “We shouldn’t give up on this community policing program.”

The block grants as outlined in the House Republican Conference’s “taking back our streets” proposal, which is to be introduced in the new Congress, would not require that the funds be used for community policing.

“I hope that this puts an end to any thoughts of moving backwards in crime-fighting programs,” Reno said. “I will be working with law enforcement and local people all across America to prevent any effort to move backwards.”

A Justice Department official involved in the anti-crime legislation who declined to be identified said that Senate Republicans are less likely to scrap the COPS program than their House counterparts. “They keep decrying ‘pork, pork, pork,’ but they’d be taking away very concrete things and replacing them with a giveaway program that promises no results.”

But a Senate Judiciary Committee aide cited two reasons for killing the COPS program. He contended that communities are using the federal grants to replace police lost through attrition, despite “non-supplanting” provisions in the law. More important, he said, the election “taught us” that Americans want the federal government to stop telling state and local governments what to do, leaving the decisions to the states.”

The community policing concept first won wide federal support during the George Bush Administration. Former Atty. Gen. William P. Barr supported community policing through the government’s “weed and seed” programs, designed to “weed out” criminal elements and “seed” areas with reform efforts.

The cities and counties named in Monday’s announcement, which was limited to jurisdictions larger than 50,000 people, now can begin recruiting, hiring and training officers in anticipation of funding.

Funding will begin once the officers have been sworn and a grant application has been submitted and approved. Grants will be made for as much as 75% of the salary and benefits of each officer over three years, up to $75,000 per officer, with state or local funds paying the remainder.

Times staff writer Richard C. Paddock in San Francisco contributed to this story.