$600-Million Police Bond Issue Headed for March Ballot

Citing the need for better facilities in an age of terrorism, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to place a $600-million bond measure on the March ballot for new police stations and an emergency operations center.

The council added $85 million to the originally proposed $515-million measure, mainly for the repair and maintenance of stations that will not be replaced.

Two other police bond measures failed to win the two-thirds vote needed for passage in 1995 and 1999, but supporters said the public mood has changed since the attacks of Sept. 11.

“This is a new day, and we have to forge a new partnership with our public safety entities and our communities,” said Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, who chairs the council’s Public Safety Committee.

On the other hand, the economy was booming when voters last turned down a police bond measure, noted Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. As such, he said he has doubts about the measure now that the economy is shaky.

“We are very skeptical about the need for more public debt, and we think the timing is questionable,” Coupal said.

The council acted after hearing pleas from the police and fire chiefs.

The cramped and inconvenient fire dispatch and emergency operations centers in the basement of City Hall East need to be replaced with a state-of-the-art, 100,000-square-foot building, Fire Chief William Bamattre said. The new consolidated centers would cost $120 million.

“The benefit is to very much enhance our capabilities to manage large-scale emergencies, especially in the environment we are in now with the threat of terrorism,” Bamattre told the council.

The bond would provide $170 million to replace the West Valley, Hollenbeck, Rampart and Harbor stations, which were all built before 1967 and are “beyond their life cycle,” Police Chief Bernard Parks told the council.

The old stations are each 25,000 square feet and built for about a third of the staff they now house. The new stations would be 60,000 square feet, Parks said.

The bond also would provide $70 million to construct a new building for the Valley Operations Bureau and Valley Traffic Division, both now occupying cramped facilities in Van Nuys. The Valley building would also include a 60-bed jail.

The bond measure is the start of a long-term plan to add six police stations, bringing the total number to 25, Parks said. The measure also includes $100 million for a new, 512-bed metro jail and $20 million to provide new bomb-squad facilities in the Valley and metro areas.

Another $45 million is earmarked to build a 20th police station, in the Mid-Wilshire area, which Councilmen Nate Holden said was promised but not delivered in the last police bond measure approved by voters in 1989.

“The voters are going to say, ‘How many times do we have to vote for this?’ ” Holden said. “You deceived them once. Don’t deceive them twice.”

To assure voters the funds would be properly spent, the council agreed to set up an oversight committee of police and fire officials, city administrators and council members.