Council Votes to Lease, Not Buy, DWP Lot

Defying the wishes of Mayor Richard Riordan, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to pay only $1 a year for a Department of Water and Power parcel in Granada Hills where a police driver training center is planned.

The mayor and the DWP had suggested that the city use bond money earmarked for new police facilities to pay the $5-million estimated value of the 44-acre lot to the utility.

But council members rejected the proposal, saying the city shouldn’t have to use bond money to buy land already owned by a city agency. Instead, the council voted to lease the land for $1 a year, as has been the tradition in other land trades between city agencies.

“The people of Los Angeles already own this property,” said an angry Councilman Hal Bernson, whose district includes the Granada Hills parcel.

Councilman Mike Feuer called the proposed $5-million payment a “shell game” because it would spend voter-approved bond money intended to build police facilities for a land purchase, which voters did not approve.

“We need to tell voters that we are treating their money like gold,” he said.

Riordan spokeswoman Noelia Rodriguez said the mayor believes the property is worth much more than $1 a year and he still believes that a compromise can be reached with the council. But she stopped short of saying what Riordan plans on doing to get more money for the land.

“There has to be a reasonable solution to it,” she said.

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While he disagrees with the council action, Rodriguez said, Riordan would not consider vetoing the motion, especially since the council has enough votes to override his veto.

She added that the money is important since the recent deregulation of the utility companies has forced the DWP to become more competitive and to operate more like a private business.

The council’s vote is the latest chapter in the long-running saga of the training facility.

In 1989, voters approved a $176-million bond measure to build a list of new police facilities, including the driver training center. At the time, many city officials assumed that the DWP would offer the Granada Hills parcel for $1 a year.

But later, officials for the semiautonomous utility suggested that the city instead pay the actual value of the property, which was estimated at about $5 million.

Riordan supported that position because last year the DWP helped pull the city’s general fund budget out of the red by contributing more than $100 million in profits. In return, the utility’s officials asked that they be allowed to sell surplus DWP land and other assets to make up for the loss.

William McCarley, general manager of the DWP, tried to avert a clash with the council by proposing a compromise. He suggested the city pay off the $5-million cost of the land over a 30-year period.

But council members wouldn’t go for it. Bernson told McCarley that the parcel cannot be developed for anything but a driver training center because it is located at the base of a dam near the Los Angeles Reservoir.

“The property has very little value to the DWP,” he told McCarley.

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Councilman Richard Alarcon, who proposed the $1-a-year lease several months ago, joked that if $1 a year was not enough for McCarley, he would pitch in another $5.

After the meeting, McCarley said the property is valuable and the DWP would like some reasonable amount for it to help pay for expensive improvements that the agency must make to the city’s water filtration system.

He said he doesn’t know whether the DWP board of commissioners will go along with the council’s $1-a-year lease idea.

If the DWP board disagrees, it may set the stage for a “big fight” between the council and the commission, McCarley said.