Mayoral Foes Clash Over LAPD Workweek

Mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa on Wednesday accused rival James K. Hahn of backing a policing schedule that he said would take officers off the street and jeopardize public safety.

Villaraigosa said in a statement that Hahn had been reckless when he signed a pledge to the police officers union agreeing to implement a revised work schedule that would put some officers on 12-hour shifts three days a week.

Hahn signed the pledge for the “3-12” after a meeting in which he was seeking the endorsement of the Police Protective League to become mayor of Los Angeles. On Wednesday, the league’s board of directors sent out a ballot to members recommending an endorsement for Hahn.

Kam Kuwata, a Hahn consultant, disagreed with the notion that the 36-hour workweeks would reduce the number of officers on the street. “I don’t know that that’s accurate,” Kuwata said. Hahn has argued that altered schedules will make officers happier and more effective.

“He feels that this is a way to make the police force more efficient and more effective,” Kuwata said. “From Jim Hahn’s point of view, the time for studying is over. If Mr. Villaraigosa wants to be a mayor of studies, voters will reject that.”

Public safety was also the topic of Villaraigosa’s first television ad of the runoff campaign, which will begin airing today. In the commercial, the former Assembly speaker responds to Hahn’s allegations that he was too lenient toward criminals in his six years in the Assembly.

In Wednesday’s statement criticizing Hahn, Villaraigosa was joined by a City Council member and police commissioner, both of whom have endorsed the former legislator.

Police Commission President Raquelle de la Rocha called the “3-12” work schedule the most troublesome of those studied by the Police Department. “When officers work 12-hour shifts, fatigue sets in, which represents [a] severe public safety concern,” De la Rocha said.

Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, head of the council’s Public Safety Committee, called Hahn irresponsible and imprudent for advocating the work schedule before completion of the City Council’s study of the change.

The 8,300-member Police Protective League has made modified work schedules one of its top priorities. It says officers will be happier and more productive if they can work longer hours three or four days a week. Projecting from an earlier study, the union says the city could save $24 million or more with the schedules.

Police Chief Bernard C. Parks has opposed the modified work schedules. Parks has said that a 1996 pilot program proved that officers become too fatigued over a 12-hour shift because of the high number of calls they must respond to in many Los Angeles neighborhoods.

Villaraigosa earlier signed a pledge to implement modified work schedules for police officers. He did not promise a specific plan, saying only that he leaned toward a program of four 10-hour days.

The candidate said Wednesday that he declined to match Hahn’s promise for the “3-12” schedule. “As important as the [police union] endorsement is, I am not prepared to undercut the safety of L.A.’s residents or police officers in order to obtain it,” Villaraigosa said.

In the television commercial, Villaraigosa is shown working at a desk next to a California flag, talking to police officers in a park and flanked by Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer at a news conference.

“In the state Assembly, Antonio Villaraigosa voted over 100 times to get tough on criminals,” states a male announcer in the voice-over. “. . . But Jim Hahn is attacking Villaraigosa on crime.”

The ad says that The Times “calls Hahn’s charges a distortion.” The Times has reported that Villaraigosa had a liberal voting record on crime but that Hahn had distorted some votes and taken others out of context.