Mayor’s LAPD Plan Reflects New Goals

Signaling a major shift, Mayor Richard Riordan plans to replace his aggressive plan for expanding the ranks of the Los Angeles Police Department with a broader public safety road map that will have specific policy goals and focus on infrastructure needs instead of personnel, City Hall sources said Wednesday.

Riordan’s budget proposal for next year, scheduled to be unveiled Friday, would add just 165 officers to the force, leaving the LAPD more than 800 officers shy of the 10,455 the mayor sought in his first public safety plan in 1993.

The budget also includes symbols of Riordan’s lame-duck status: Having opposed an effort to place a massive bond measure for police facilities on the April ballot while he was seeking reelection, the mayor now plans to campaign aggressively for a $350-million to $450-million measure that would replace the downtown police headquarters, build a fire dispatch center and emergency operations center, build two police stations--one in the San Fernando Valley and one in the Mid-Wilshire district--and expand dozens of other police facilities.

In addition, Riordan will call for a separate bond measure to expand and renovate 28 libraries, mostly in the city’s outlying areas, and build two branches, one near Silver Lake, the other on the Westside, the aides said.

Riordan’s office refused to disclose specifics about how many jobs would be eliminated in this year’s budget proposal, or how new revenues would be raised. The aides did say that the economic outlook had improved with sales tax and business tax levels returning to their pre-recession levels.

The new public safety blueprint would also incorporate the Fire Department, which would get nine new engines and a new station in the east San Fernando Valley, according to Riordan aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The budget also allocates $1 million for urgent improvements at six police stations and calls for 36 new homicide detectives to tackle the backlog of unsolved cases, 25 additional detectives to revive a disbanded fugitive detail that tracks down known felons, and an extra roving Metro squad that can zoom in on trouble spots throughout the city.

The scaled-back police expansion and the broadened public safety agenda reflect a reality check by Riordan’s office: Last year, the City Council chopped the mayor’s proposed level of police recruitment from 710 to 450 new officers, and lawmakers have long been calling for additional attention to infrastructure and facilities rather than Riordan’s singular focus on personnel numbers.

“I’m just very pleased that we are putting in the pieces of the puzzle,” said Councilwoman Laura Chick, who heads the Public Safety Committee and was the first council member to publicly criticize Riordan’s public safety plan as being narrow-minded. “You can’t get to a safe public without putting in these pieces.”

Riordan’s aides said the abandonment of the original growth plan was actually a symbol of its success. Now that the LAPD has an additional 2,000 officers--short of the 3,000 Riordan promised during his 1993 campaign--and technology improvements in every station, the department can target its resources to specific areas, they said.

“The existing public safety plan--it was useful for a time, but we’re much beyond that,” a high-ranking administration official said.

“It wasn’t a question of limited resources. It was, given that we’re trying to get to certain goals, what’s the best way to achieve those goals?”

Riordan’s new goal, the aide said, is to make Los Angeles “the safest of any major city” in America. (It is currently ranked sixth.) The budget also calls on the LAPD to improve its rate of completed cases from 22% to at least 25%, asks the Fire Department to cut its emergency response time, and demands “full implementation” of the reforms proposed by the Christopher Commission in 1991 and of similar recommendations by the Fire Department’s human resources panel.

The mayor’s deputies also noted that while the budget only adds 165 officers, it gives the LAPD the equivalent of 800 more positions by turning 218 slots over to civilians and adding $5 million in overtime funds.

“This reflects the beginning of what I hope will be genuinely collaborative efforts between the council and the mayor,” said City Councilman Mike Feuer, who is on the Budget Committee and the public safety panel. “All of us agree that we need more police officers. We want to add as many police officers as we can afford while continuing to assure that their work is as effective as possible because we have the infrastructure to support their work. We want to continue to add police officers and make sure we don’t ignore other priorities in the city.”

Last year’s aggressive growth was rejected by the council, in part, out of concern that the city would be unable to pay the new officers’ salaries when federal grants to fund the positions dried up. But now some at City Hall say the city will have to apply for waivers from the federal government because it will no longer be hiring as many officers as promised.

Besides the public safety program, the officials said, the budget will focus on three themes:

* Improving customer service, such as expanding hours at libraries and increasing tree trimming and street paving, while boosting code enforcement at multifamily dwellings.

* An overhaul in the operations of the city’s vehicle fleet and purchasing processes.

* Long-term readjustments to reduce the city’s structural deficit problems.

Councilman Richard Alatorre, chairman of the Budget Committee, said he was glad Riordan had refocused his public safety agenda to be more in line with the council’s, but that he still expects the approval process to be tough.

“It’s not going to be easy--it’s going to be painful,” Alatorre said. “Any time you have to hurt people, how can it be a good budget?”

Times staff writer Hugo Martin also contributed to this story.