City Hall Is Key to Stronger LAPD

Political consultant Mark Litchman should brush up on his facts regarding the expansion of the Los Angeles Police Department (“Cops and Taxes Are Real Issues in Valley,” June 16).

As a member of the Los Angeles Police Commission, the citizens body that is by law the head of the LAPD, I can tell you that we’ve made tremendous progress in rebuilding the Police Department and restoring our citizens’ confidence in law enforcement over the last three years.

The Police Department has expanded from 7,500 officers to 9,000, the highest ever in the history of the LAPD. Citizens are now getting a greater say in police matters through community police advisory boards. The Police Commission recently hired an inspector general, a key recommendation of the Christopher Commission.

In order to bring police officers closer to their communities, we’ve opened more than 100 LAPD substations, community service centers and stop-in centers. Thanks to the Mayor’s Alliance for a Safer L.A. and the $15 million they raised in private donations, computers are being placed in police stations across the city, allowing officers to battle criminals rather than mounds of paperwork. The Mayor’s Alliance is an unprecedented public / private partnership that will benefit all Angelenos.

Despite these and other improvements--and the fact that the LAPD has its biggest budget ever--we are still the most under-policed big city in the nation. With 2.3 officers per 1,000 residents, we lag far behind New York (5.1) and Chicago (4.6). Despite the impressive drop in the crime rate (19% citywide), we must continue our plans to improve and expand the police force.

How can we pay for these improvements? The same way we’ve paid for them up to now--through partnership, innovation and a lot of hard work. As a businessman, it’s very clear to me that the effort to stretch every dollar at City Hall must aggressively continue.

I’ve learned that the city could save $80 million a year through reforms in workers’ compensation and the city’s outmoded purchasing practices, and by making substantive changes to the city’s fleet operations. By achieving reform throughout City Hall, we will be able to pay for our public safety plan and other priorities.

Mayor Richard Riordan and City Council President John Ferraro recently appointed a panel of three City Council members, the city controller and two business leaders to examine long-term funding options for our public safety plan. We should look to this panel’s leadership in finding creative solutions.

In the meantime, there is no question that we can--and must--make City Hall more efficient. It is irresponsible to ask our citizens to pay more taxes until we wring every ounce of inefficiency from City Hall.