Police Bond Issue Has Too Much Fat : The alternative in the June 6 measure is to leave law officers’ facilities overcrowded

By now, we hope you have heard about an important matter that will be on the June 6 election ballot. It is the police bond measure that originally was designed to pay for the creation of two new police stations in the San Fernando Valley and Mid-Wilshire areas of the city.

The same two police stations had been promised in a 1989 police bond measure comfortably approved by the voters. But the list of projects was so long and the cost estimates were so low the stations could not be built for lack of money. That’s why City Councilman Richard Alarcon had decided to try to correct the error with a more modest bond measure.

But the City Council wound up adding many other slices to the unbaked pie, adding on projects around Los Angeles, sending the cost of the measure up to $171 million. In so doing, city officials increased the likelihood of repeating the same sham that had been perpetrated on the voters in a 1989 police bond measure. It’s called promising more than you might be able to deliver. In so doing, they increased the chances that the voters will just say no this time.

But opponents are also playing their cards too close to their vests.

Some taxpayer groups, for example, argue that money should be spent on increasing the size of the LAPD. Sure, but if the Riordan Administration finds a way to hire 2,855 new officers, they’ll be on the street, all right. That’s where their lockers will have to be located.

In the Valley, for example, the Van Nuys, West Valley, North Hollywood, Foothill and Devonshire division buildings have a total capacity of just 676 sworn officers. But the number of sworn officers assigned to those stations is nearly double that amount: 1,283. Those new hires we’re hoping for would bring the total to 1,682, all of which would make it possible to have officers behind desks and on the street at the same time.

The choice for voters: anorexic work space for the cops, or a bond measure in need of liposuction. That’s because the LAPD must also be able to house a bigger force, or we will still be left with a department that is inadequate for its tasks.