Supervisors Approve $6.8 Million for Security

Los Angeles County supervisors approved $6.8 million in extra spending to battle terrorism Tuesday, the first step in a nearly $100-million campaign to boost the ability of local fire, health and sheriff’s departments to prevent and respond to potential attacks.

The money approved Tuesday will fund, among other things, decontamination facilities at four county hospitals, increased sheriff’s and district attorney’s intelligence operations and additional concrete barriers at key county facilities.

Separately, the county’s Department of Public Works is spending $1 million to tighten security at county dams, water systems and regional airports.

The sum approved by supervisors Tuesday is a fraction of the roughly $100-million anti-terrorism wish list that county agencies compiled earlier this month. Most of those items--including satellite phones, extra firefighters and new computer systems for the coroner’s office that can recognize patterns of biological warfare--would be purchased with state or federal money rather than funds available to supervisors.

County Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen said that county agencies are seeking another $92 million in outside funding.

Still, Janssen left unfilled more than $10 million in requests from county agencies for additional resources to combat terrorism, including money to step up security at county generating plants and screen for weapons carried by visitors to the county Hall of Administration. Janssen said he did not believe those requests were a high enough priority.

Budget Picture Increasingly Dire

Supervisors, who approved the package unanimously during an unusual closed session, said they would reconsider additional spending as merited.

“It’s a necessary beginning,” Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said. “Whether we need to spend more or not, time will tell.”

The approval took place amid an increasingly dire county budget picture. The county gets much of its funding from the state, which is facing a large and growing deficit. Supervisors were scheduled to allocate nearly $220 million in unspent funds Tuesday, but postponed most decisions other than the counter-terrorism package until December in light of the worsening economy.

Supervisors approved $9 million to improve probation facilities in the wake of a civil rights probe by the U.S. Department of Justice. The other big-ticket item was the terrorism package.

The package includes $1.5 million for 16 additional sheriff’s investigators and two district attorney’s investigators to investigate and coordinate counter-terrorism probes. It also includes $1.4 million to protect against cyber-terrorism, as well as money to add barricades and computer security systems in various county buildings. The board also approved $279,000 to temporarily boost the county’s Human Relations Commission staff, which has been overwhelmed with hate crimes reports since Sept. 11.

Finally, supervisors approved $1 million in extra health spending for programs that they had already green-lighted last week in closed session. At that time, county officials said the health department would pay for the new measures out of its existing budget.

But on Tuesday, supervisors approved extra money for the health agency’s steps, which include extra staff to train private physicians on recognizing signs of biological warfare and extra equipment for paramedic crews to protect against attacks.

Security Discussions Take Place in Private

Some supervisors and their aides have grumbled about the manner in which the anti-terrorism spending has been approved. Since Sept. 11, supervisors have held almost no discussion of security during the public portion of their weekly meeting. Instead, they have gone behind closed doors to get reports and requests from their agencies, citing security concerns.

On Tuesday, Chief Administrative Officer Janssen told supervisors that discussions on the budget items related to terrorism should take place in private.

Yaroslavsky said he was alarmed at that, saying it was a possible violation of the state’s open meeting law.

“If we’re talking about an investigation or something, that’s another story,” Yaroslavsky said. But “if you’re talking about how much money we should spend, I think that’s something the public should know about.”

Supervisor Don Knabe said he believed there were legitimate security concerns that merited discussing the terrorism proposals privately. And County Counsel Lloyd W. Pellman said doing so would not violate the law because the county would publicly announce how it spent the money.

Supervisor Gloria Molina, whose staff said she was perturbed at the way the issue was being handled, said that the supervisors would come back into public session to vote on the package, which Yaroslavsky said eased his concerns. But the vote was held in closed session and announced over the public-address system.