Hope, Healthy Skepticism Greet Proposal

Announcement Monday of a plan to quickly build an LAPD satellite station at the shuttered GM plant--the key to a redevelopment deal to revitalize the neighborhood--was met with some skepticism by a knowledgeable police official.

The official, who asked not to be identified, warned that problems with red tape and finances could delay the station project, long a dream of residents and business owners in the crime-ridden area, by as much as four years.

The satellite station project was part of an ambitious redevelopment plan for the former factory announced in part Monday by City Councilman Richard Alarcon.

Alarcon conceded that attempts to build police facilities in the area have previously failed, but said Monday he was optimistic that this time, things will be different.

“We need to come up with new and innovative ways to make these stations happen,” he said. “There’s a lot of things we want to explore.”

Those include novel financing schemes and efforts to put the project on the fast track for completion by the summer of 1997. The LAPD official was doubtful such a timetable could be met.

“He’s out of his mind,” the official said. “There’s a way of getting these facilities, and you have to go through the process. All these things take time, nothing happens overnight.”

There are formidable obstacles to the construction of the station, mainly the cash-strapped state of the LAPD and the city. A $171-million city bond issue to build a full-fledged station at the plant site was rejected by voters last year.

Alarcon says that after that defeat he scaled down his plans and began pushing the smaller satellite station, and he thinks a deal announced Monday to transform the area into a shopping and entertainment center will boost the streamlined effort.

He ruled out floating another bond issue to help raise the estimated $2 million to $5 million it would cost to build the satellite station, which would have a staff of 75 to 100 but no jail. Instead, Alarcon said, money can be raised by:

* Drawing from a $14-million Community Redevelopment Agency earthquake-relief fund for the area;

* Selling part of the surplus land around the station;

* Redirecting money raised by a bond issue away from the Department of Water and Power.

Alarcon said the satellite station would use only about two acres of a five-acre site, so the city could sell the remainder of the land that GM donated to the city last year. The 100-acre GM site has previously been appraised as worth $25 million, but Alarcon said he expects the value of the land to rise with the development deal.

It has taken the city four years to find a buyer for the plant.

The plan to use money from a 1989 bond issue for the satellite station rather than give it to the DWP is the most controversial of Alarcon’s funding techniques. Mayor Richard Riordan had planned to use $5 million from that bond issue to pay for a Granada Hills parcel owned by the DWP where the city wants to build a police driver training facility.

Alarcon last week proposed that the City Council make the DWP sell the land to the city for $1, saying it was outrageous to spend more on property already owned by a city agency. That would ostensibly free the funds for use elsewhere, such as the satellite police station.

But that motion was opposed by Riordan--who is now an ally in the plan to redevelop the GM site.

City officials are also skeptical that the City Council can force the semi-autonomous DWP to sell its property for $1.

Alarcon acknowledged that it might take up to three years to complete the satellite station, but said he hopes to have it running by next summer, the completion date for the redevelopment project.

LAPD Cmdr. Tim McBride said the department was eager to study Alarcon’s proposal. “Certainly we recognize the need for more police officers in that area,” McBride said. But, he added: “We are still searching for a site to put in a 19th station. That’s our goal, and the community has been supportive of that effort.”

Alarcon agreed, saying he still wants to build a complete station elsewhere in the mid-Valley area. But much more money would be needed for that project.

It has been nearly seven years since voters approved a measure to improve LAPD facilities. After that $176 million was approved in 1989, officials acknowledged that it would not cover at least seven of the 23 projects promised--including a new North Hollywood station.

After being rejected for two years running, a $235-million measure to improve the city’s emergency dispatch service was approved in 1992 in the wake of the riots that year.

Consultants recently warned that the department’s current facilities are inadequate and that long-term investment is imperative. Their report recommended tearing down the Parker Center headquarters downtown and building two new stations, one in the San Fernando Valley. But officials are skittish at the price tag for such an effort--$432.5 million.