LAPD May Buy 44 Acres From DWP for $5 Million : Granada Hills: 1989 bond money would be used. Critics say property for training facility should be leased for $1.

Using bond money approved by voters six years ago, the Los Angeles Police Department is negotiating a $5-million deal to buy land in Granada Hills from the Department of Water and Power to build a weapons and driver-training facility.

But the potential deal has triggered the ire of critics who accuse the DWP of reneging on an agreement to lease the land to the LAPD, a fellow city agency, for $1 a year, following city tradition. Instead, the proposed sale, if approved by the Los Angeles City Council, would force the city to dip into bond money slated for other projects.

Reports of the possible sale come at an awkward time for supporters of a $171-million police facilities bond issue on next Tuesday’s citywide ballot. Opponents of the ballot proposal contend that funds from the 1989 bond measure have been poorly spent and few of the projects built.

The Granada Hills property consists of 44 acres on the eastern edge of the Lower Los Angeles Reservoir Basin, close to the intersection of the Golden State and San Diego freeways. Police building plans call for construction of a $23-million training center where officers can practice shooting and emergency-driving techniques.

Previously, the DWP demanded more than $6 million for the land. But an independent appraisal has valued the property at $4.6 million, with some related costs that would bring the amount close to $5 million, police officials said.

“We’re still in the process of negotiating the final amounts,” Police Cmdr. Carlo Cudio, who heads the department’s facilities construction group, said Thursday.

*

Eric Rose, an aide to Councilwoman Laura Chick, who asked for the outside appraisal, said “although the councilwoman is not excited about the prospect of paying $5 million,” the final amount will come in at less than the original asking price.

Chick remains “hopeful that the DWP board might reconsider charging the LAPD,” Rose said, “in light of the generous donation by General Motors,” which this week gave five acres of its abandoned Panorama City plant to the city for a new San Fernando Valley police station.

But critics of a sale accuse the DWP of backing out of the $1-a-year lease they say was offered the LAPD several years ago. In correspondence dating back to 1986, the DWP appears to agree to such an arrangement.

By now charging for the land, critics note, $5 million in bond money would be put back as cash into the city’s general fund, which will allow the city to hire more police officers, as several city officials have promised to do.

In effect, the city would be buying property it already owns, said attorney Richard Close, who has criticized the handling of the 1989 bond money and who opposes next week’s ballot measure.

“All they’re doing is using smoke and mirrors,” Close said.

DWP officials could not be reached for comment Thursday.