Police Centers: Outreach or Overreaching?

They popped up like gourmet coffee shops, occupying corners of shopping malls, office buildings and busy thoroughfares throughout the city.

Now, some public officials worry that the Los Angeles Police Department’s Community OutReach Centers may have expanded too fast too soon.

The City Council’s powerful Public Safety Committee is taking a hard look at the network of mini-stations created to ease congestion in the city’s 18 main police stations and make the department more approachable to the public. Of the 125 centers, 113 opened in the last four years, a time when Chief Willie Williams was putting renewed emphasis on the department’s decades-old community policing effort.

In its own review of the network, the LAPD acknowledged that several substations have already been closed for lack of use. And Williams recently ordered that no more be opened until their cost and effectiveness, including whether they actually reduce crime, are evaluated further. Questions persist about whether the substations’ expense is justified by the number of citizens who use them.

Several police and government officials defend the substations as important symbols of community policing, in which officers work with the public to try to prevent crime rather than simply respond to crimes as they occur.

But police officials acknowledge they have lost track of the substations’ cost because their miscellaneous expenses have been paid for by another city department. Most sites are provided rent-free by businesses and council district offices and are staffed partly by volunteers. But it still proves expensive to bring the facilities up to building codes.

“The LAPD has become so used to handouts that when businesses say, ‘Here’s some space for free,’ they jump and say, ‘Great! We’ll take it!’ ” said Councilwoman Laura Chick, the west San Fernando Valley representative who is chairwoman of the Public Safety Committee. “But I think it’s time to slow down and see if it’s really increasing public safety.”

Chick also pointed out that the city’s long-sought goal and perpetual campaign promise of “more cops on the street” may not be in sync with the centers, though staffing ranges from partly to mostly volunteer.

“We’re taking officers off the street and putting them in office space,” she said. “We need to ask, are people in the community getting frustrated by this?”

The substations began expanding about five years ago in the months after the Rodney G. King beating and the Christopher Commission report on police reform, which strongly recommended better communication with the public.

Police persuaded property owners throughout the city to donate office space they couldn’t fill during the recession, an arrangement that seemed heaven-sent for a cash-strapped department struggling to regain credibility and focus.

Today, with the imminent departure of a chief criticized for being long on style and short on substance, the substations have become a logical target for scrutiny.

“It’s definitely a political hot potato,” Chick said. “But I give Chief Williams a lot of credit. I don’t think it was all his invention. I don’t think it was something that came from Parker Center. I think it came through the community.”

Records and interviews show that police were unprepared for the amount of incidental expenses at the substations for everything from drywall repair to electric bills to landscaping.

Because they were not budgeted, those expenses fall into a category for unplanned costs that are paid for by the city’s Department of General Services rather than the Police Department. So the cumulative cost has been easy to overlook, officials said.

“It is easier for LAPD not to worry about what it’s costing because they’re handing it to another department,” Chick said. Police are already aware of the hidden costs. “If you looked at these as a profit-making enterprise . . . we wouldn’t be breaking even,” said Deputy Chief Mark Kroeker, an outspoken proponent of community-based policing.

Kroeker said he believes in the idea of substations but would like to see the department be more selective in choosing their locations, rather than simply relying on the largess of property owners. The substations might also be more successful, Kroeker said, if the department did some advance marketing research, not unlike businesses.

“We’re not selling a product,” Kroeker said, “but we are providing a service.”

Aside from concerns about the substations’ cost, there also are enough doubts about the public’s awareness and use of the centers that Williams himself has ordered that no more of them be opened until the program is thoroughly reviewed.

An LAPD report last November included a resounding thumbs-down from some commanding officers, including Capt. Richard Wahler of North Hollywood, who said four of the five substations in his area were underused, cramped spaces with worn-out furniture. Similar comments came from police in centers in Baldwin Hills and at Rancho Cienega Sports Center Park who described broken lighting fixtures and rodent infestations.

“When the [centers] were first opened, the community was excited,” the report said, “but as time passed, the community reverted to traditional modes of contact for police business.”

The Southwest station commander said centers there “were not used at all,” according to the report, leading to the closure of three locations.

But in concluding the November report, Williams called the centers “an effective method in promoting the department’s community policing philosophy” and stressed their “positive impact in the majority of communities.”

Even while acknowledging the substations’ flaws, many police and city officials insist the centers play a vital role as a gathering place for volunteers and a hopeful symbol of what Kroeker called “a return to the village police officer.” Chick herself doesn’t advocate shutting down the centers, only reevaluating them.

Supporters point to other cities exploring nontraditional policing methods. Detroit, for example, recently announced that 29 McDonald’s restaurants will have police officers stationed at desks equipped with phones and other office supplies.

L.A. County Ombudsman Rudy De Leon, who helped implement community policing procedures while he was with the LAPD in the 1970s, said the centers are particularly important in minority communities and neighborhoods with a lot of recent immigrants.

“[Residents] bring customs and languages from other cultures,” he said. “So when they see a station in the community, they can relax. They can talk to someone in plainclothes and deal with them one-on-one.”

“I think it’s a good idea. I’d like to see more of them,” said Rickey Gelb, a partner in the Valley-based Gelb Enterprises, which is leasing space for police centers in Encino and Granada Hills. “It shows that police are out there. . . . I hear all the time from people who enjoy knowing they can stop in.”

Bob Arzuman, a 71-year-old retiree who volunteers to answer the telephone at the San Pedro Community Service Center, said the facility is used by about a dozen residents a day.

“The people feel more at ease coming here, instead of going down to the station,” Arzuman said. “Some come here for guidance, some come to us with complaints about drug dealers.”

A visit to a police center next door to Chuck E Cheese’s and Pic ‘N’ Save in a Granada Hills strip mall did little to contradict accounts of underuse. On a recent weekday afternoon, two volunteers there said they had plenty of time to chat. During a 20-minute interview, no one stopped in.

“As you can see, it’s not hectic,” said volunteer Erik Lemus of Mission Hills. “You can get questions asked. Things are more accessible.”

Wrapping up his shift at the Granada Hills center, Lemus pointed out that CPR courses and Little League meetings are held there, and it will serve as a polling site for the April 8 election.

“You may not realize how much goes on here,” stressed Irad J. Parkhurst, the other volunteer.

As he spoke to a reporter, Lemus’ eyes drifted out the front window to a dog propping its front legs on its owner’s sport-utility vehicle.

His eyes still fixed on the dog outside, he said: “Things are a little looser here. People feel more secure. They can go do their shopping at Lucky’s and then see us and go, ‘Oh yeah, I was going to stop by the Police Department.’ ”

Times staff writer Matt Lait contributed to this report.

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LAPD’s Neighborhood Centers

Locations and addresses for the 27 Community OutReach Centers operated by the LAPD in the San Fernando Valley, by police station:

WEST VALLEY

* Fallbrook Mall Community Assistance Office, 6633 Fallbrook Ave., Canoga Park

* Community Assistance Office, 17547 Ventura Blvd., Encino

* Topanga Plaza, 6600 Topanga Canyon Blvd., Canoga Park

* Kaiser Permanente-Woodland Hills Medical Center, 5601 De Soto Ave., Woodland Hills

* 7033-7037 Reseda Blvd., Reseda

VAN NUYS

* Kaiser Permanente-Panorama City Medical Center, 13652 Cantara St., Panorama City

* Latin American Assn., 14540 Blythe St., Panorama City

* Field Office, City Councilman Michael Feuer, 14310 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks

* Recreation & Park Center, 15100 Erwin St., Van Nuys

NORTH HOLLYWOOD

* California Federal Bank, 4821 Laurel Canyon Blvd., Valley Village

* Recreation & Park Facility, 12240 Archwood St., North Hollywood

* Field Office, City Councilman Richard Alarcon, 8128 Sunland Blvd., Sun Valley

* Valley Storefront, 12821 Victory Blvd., North Hollywood

* Kinko’s Copy Center, 12101 Ventura Blvd., Studio City

FOOTHILL

* Chamber of Commerce, 7314 Foothill Blvd., Tujunga

* Dean Security, 8616 Woodman Ave., Arleta

* Strip mall, 14719 Rinaldi St., Mission Hills

* Boys & Girls Club, 11251 Glenoaks Blvd., Pacoima

* Field Office, City Councilmen Richard Alarcon and Hal Bernson, 13517 Hubbard St., Sylmar

* Field Office, City Councilman Joel Wachs, 7314 Foothill Blvd., Tujunga

* Discount Sales Store, 8438 Sunland Blvd., Sun Valley

* Field Office, City Councilman Richard Alarcon, 13630 Van Nuys Blvd., Pacoima

* Olive Mill Plaza, 13867 Foothill Blvd., Space No. 104, Sylmar

DEVONSHIRE

* Northridge Fashion Center, 9301 Tampa Ave., Northridge

* North Hills Community Medical Building, 8745 Parthenia Place, Granada Hills

* Youth Center, 9150 Sepulveda Blvd., Granada Hills

* Granada Hills Community Center, 16262 San Fernando Mission Road, Granada Hills

Source: LAPD