Plan to Merge Cypress, Los Alamitos Police Forces Meets Opposition

City leaders and residents in Cypress and Los Alamitos will explore consolidating their police departments during separate study sessions tonight.

Although the merger could result in cost savings to the two cities, some Los Alamitos residents and police officers are already expressing their disapproval.

Loss of community identity, slower police response times and a concern that Los Alamitos might not get a police substation are among concerns of residents in the smaller of the towns.

City staff members, who will be making presentations at the meetings, say the move would significantly reduce costs for both cities. The study sessions will be at each city’s council meeting.

The idea of a merger was first proposed 30 years ago, Cypress Police Chief John D. Hensley said last week. It has resurfaced several times since then, but Hensley and Los Alamitos City Manager Robert Dominguez said conditions are now ripe for the idea to be implemented, and staff from both cities have been meeting since March.

One reason now is a good time, they say, is because Los Alamitos has an interim police chief, making it easier for Hensley to take charge of both departments.

But there are major differences in the way the two cities are viewing the situation.

Cypress officials want to provide police services to Los Alamitos under a contract, absorbing both the personnel and the equipment of the other department.

But Los Alamitos is talking about a “consolidation of police services” with no mention of contracting services from Cypress.

“There’s bound to be sensitive areas,” Dominguez said Sunday. He refers to the proposal as an agreement or joint powers authority rather than a contract. He also stressed that certain requirements would need to be met before the plan could go through.

Roger Baum, a Los Alamitos businessman, says he can’t see any significant savings for taxpayers and is concerned that police response times to calls for assistance in Los Alamitos would not be as fast as they are now. He adds that their city also has no need for “big-city policing,” a gang detail or SWAT team.

“We have a very small town, and people like it this way,” Baum said Sunday. “We have little crime in our city. Cypress has more crime than we do.”

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For about two weeks, Baum has been gathering signatures on a petition opposing the merger. He says he has been bombarded with calls from other Los Alamitos residents who read about his efforts in a local weekly newspaper.

Thus far, Baum says he has about 150 signatures on his petition, which he plans to present to City Council members at tonight’s meeting.

Hensley said response times would not suffer in any consolidation, because officers would still be assigned to beats in Los Alamitos and would not be coming from Cypress. Response times vary, but the average for a high-priority call is two minutes, 49 seconds for Los Alamitos and three minutes, 27 seconds for Cypress.

Hensley says he understands this is a “hotter” issue for those Los Alamitos residents who view the proposed consolidation as a larger city taking over a smaller one, even though both are about equal in area.

Los Alamitos is about 4.3 square miles, including two miles of a military reservation, and has about 12,500 residents. Cypress covers 6.7 square miles, with about 50,000 residents.

The Cypress Police Department, with a budget of $8.4 million, has 55 sworn officers, 16 civilian employees and 23 volunteers. Los Alamitos’ Police Department has a $3-million budget, 24 sworn officers and three civilian employees.

“They may be losing their police department in terms of identity, but in terms of their service levels, it will be enhanced,” Hensley said, adding that he is also open to having a substation in Los Alamitos.