Mayor Seeks to Use Windfall for Police

Mayor Richard Riordan, handed a $17-million windfall, is proposing to build a long-anticipated police station in the northeast San Fernando Valley, but the money may land in a tug of war between the mayor and some City Council members with other priorities.

Working with the chiefs of the police and fire departments, Riordan’s staff has identified a list of high-ranking priorities for city funds. Now, suddenly, two pots of money have emerged to help pay for at least a few items on that list, and top members of the mayor’s staff said Thursday that they hope the City Council will approve those priorities.

Specifically, Riordan hopes to invest $10 million in an interim police station for the northeast Valley, a project that originally was debated in the late 1980s and that some proponents believed would be covered by a 1989 bond measure.

According to the mayor’s office, that facility would also house a fifth LAPD bureau headquarters and would help improve police services in the Valley, where response times are slightly higher than in other areas of Los Angeles.

Riordan also wants to invest $1.5 million in improvements to the Van Nuys Civic Center, upgrade all the city’s police stations in order to make them accessible to the handicapped and improve fire stations across Los Angeles so that diesel fumes from trucks no longer seep into the quarters where firefighters sleep and eat.

Council members have not created a competing list of priorities, but some were surprised in recent days to learn that there might be a pool of money suddenly available.

Their interest in the money, combined with an apparent misunderstanding by Riordan aides, produced a flurry of activity Thursday. Councilwoman Laura Chick, who heads the Public Safety Committee, scheduled a special meeting for today, and Riordan aides concluded that she or other council members would use that session to air their views on how to spend the newly discovered money.

As a result, Riordan’s staff hustled to put their plan forward. Chick, however, said she has no plans to use the session to discuss the new sources of money or how to spend it.

Chick said she was interested in the idea of a northeast Valley station and wanted to hear more about it, but was not prepared to endorse it without more details. “This is good news,” she said of the extra money. “I want to make sure it’s the right strategic decision.”

The sudden infusion of cash comes from two sources. The 1989 bond failed to deliver on some of its promised improvements--the result, officials now admit, of poor planning. But some of the money remains unspent and so could be diverted to other projects.

According to Deputy Mayor Jennifer Roth, who handles policy issues for the mayor’s office, $6.3 million of that bond money is available now.

In addition, a second pot of money is headed the city’s way, courtesy of the state government, which took money from cities years ago and now is returning some of it. Although that money was taken to assist education, it returns to local governments with no strings attached. Roth said that as a result, the city will have an additional $10.8 million to spend.

Combined, those two sources of cash represent a windfall of $17.1 million, enough to pay for all the projects on Riordan’s priority list, aides said.

The mayor appears to enjoy the support of newly elected Councilman Alex Padilla, in whose district the station would be built. And Police Chief Bernard C. Parks has long sought money for new police stations, including one in the Valley, so his department stands to gain by the proposed list of projects.

But some officials have questioned the wisdom of spending roughly $10 million on an interim station in the northeast Valley. They advocate spending more--estimates range from about $20 million to $25 million--but investing it in a permanent facility rather than a temporary one.