PERSPECTIVES ON PROPOSITION 1 : Stations Useless Without Officers : Adding divisions will improve 911 response times, enhance patrol presence. The LAPD has been handcuffed by its low numbers--2.37 officers per 1,000 residents.

The latest chicken-or-egg dilemma is the debate over building new police stations versus adding more officers to the Los Angeles Police Department. Deciding which comes first is easier to answer than the metaphorical query implies: The answer is neither and both. You can’t have one without the other and not jeopardize the quality of law enforcement.

Proposition 1 is the $171-million Police Facilities Bond Measure on the June 6 ballot that will finance the construction of two new police stations--one in the mid-Wilshire area and one in the central San Fernando Valley area--expanding the number of Los Angeles Police Department divisions from 18 to 20 citywide.

Experts predict that shrinking the geographic areas of the police deployment will inevitably result in improved 911 emergency response time and a greater patrol presence throughout the city’s neighborhoods.

Additionally, the Rampart and Hollenbeck stations will be replaced with new buildings while the West Valley, Harbor, Northeast and West Los Angeles stations will be expanded to ameliorate the abysmally overcrowded conditions in those facilities.

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and Chief of Police Willie L. Williams have enjoyed success with their plan to expand the present police force of 7,600 to 10,000 in the next three years. Just last week the City Council approved a budget which will put 600 more police officers on the streets. Hundreds were hired last year.

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However, most police stations in Los Angeles are already overflowing with more officers than the facilities were originally built to accommodate, according to the LAPD. These crowded conditions have caused officer morale to suffer. At the Van Nuys station some officers, an hour before taking to the streets and risking their lives, are forced to change into their uniforms in parked cars for lack of space inside. That valuable time and energy is better utilized in pursuit of conditions that improve rather than diminish police efficiency and morale.

Improving public safety in our sprawling 465-square-mile metropolis is no easy matter. The police themselves have been handcuffed by their relatively low numbers--2.37 per 1,000 residents, compared to Philadelphia’s 4.0 per 1,000--short-staffing an anxious public simply because the city’s infrastructure lags interminably behind its population growth. When the need for more police in our neighborhoods is crystal clear and the will to fulfill that need is obvious, balking at a monthly average of 79 cents per house reeks of the same naysaying that helped create these conditions.

The recent groundbreaking for the construction of the new 77th Street Station in South Los Angeles and the new North Hollywood station was accomplished by the passage of the 1989 Police Facilities Bond Measure. The upcoming vote for these projects will complete the much-needed space requirements of the LAPD in line with the expansion of community-based policing programs.

Clearly, we must plan and budget for this two-pronged approach required by our ambitious vision of law enforcement in America’s second largest city with little energy wasted on choosing between the two. And rightfully so.

Expediting the construction process in an onerous bureaucratic structure is a major priority for supporters of the bond measure, not the least of whom is Chief Williams. He recently championed his Police Facilities Construction Unit, which now consists of experienced hands at getting the job done. The crown jewel of their short tenure is unquestionably the acquisition of the Hewlett-Packard building for the new police academy to train additional cadet classes, saving taxpayers $13 million from the previous bond measure funds appropriated for police facilities.

Streamlining the permit and management process is high on the priority list, as too many projects languish for a lack of a single coordinating entity. In fact, the City Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Expediting Police Facilities recently called for a Planning Department “project manager” to provide hands-on coordination, oversight, and most important, accountability.

Proposition 1 represents choices: smaller geographic police patrol areas and faster 911 emergency response time; more police facilities throughout the city and improved police morale, safer neighborhoods for our families and a modern Police Department better equipped to fight crime. Which comes first? All of it. It’s hand in hand.