Valleywide : City Officials, Public Talk Crime and More

They came to talk crime.

But when question-and-answer time rolled around, the 800 people at the Church on the Way on Thursday night were just as likely to quiz Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and a group of City Council members and police officials about the beleaguered Metro Rail project and parking permits as they were to ask about beefing up police patrols. The need to improve police facilities was addressed by council members Mike Feuer, Laura Chick and Joel Wachs, each of whom referred to a report that calls for a $432.5-million bond measure to replace the aging Hollenbeck, Rampart and West Valley stations.

Feuer, who sits on the council’s Public Safety Committee, said he didn’t know what form a police facilities bond measure might take but said facetiously that such a measure was the only alternative to officers changing clothing in their cars and conducting interviews in shower stalls.

The night’s biggest applause line by far came from Wachs, who advocated bolstering Police Department coffers not by raising taxes but by cutting the fat in other areas, particularly at the Department of Water and Power.

“It’s wrong that we pay our officers less than other cities do,” he said. “We need to untie their hands and let them do the job we hired them to do.”

Councilman Richard Alarcon also scored points with his proposal to open a police station at the vacant General Motors Plant on Van Nuys Boulevard. Riordan, meanwhile, touted the progress of his Project Safety L.A., noting that the number of LAPD officers has jumped from 7,400 to 8,700 in 2 1/2 years.

Panorama City resident Leslie Yamashita, who sits on a neighborhood police advisory board, said she was pleased with the public interest in the forum but a little skeptical. “It’s easy to say public safety is our No. 1 priority,” she said. “I will look forward to seeing action take place in City Hall.”

Likewise, Kelly and Vernon Stallmo of Reseda were dubious. “I was not pleased with what I heard,” Kelly said. “I heard a lot of dodging around issues.”