L.A. Seeks $100 Million From U.S. for Security

Southern California’s congressional leaders are being urged to provide Los Angeles city and county with nearly $100 million in emergency communications equipment and law enforcement training and address other “critical” security needs to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks.

Citing new terrorist threats and Al Qaeda’s previous targeting of Los Angeles, City Councilman Jack Weiss told Washington officials in a letter that an array of homeland security improvements are “urgently” needed to safeguard LAX, local harbors and other potential targets.

The needs, said the former federal prosecutor and head of a city homeland security task force, include $35 million to secure the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach; $12 million to expand intelligence gathering and analysis by the county’s terrorism early-warning group; $10 million for annual anti-terrorism training for local law enforcement agencies; and $9 million for Los Angeles police and firefighters to receive military training to handle biological and radiological attacks.

“The Congressional Budget Office estimates the first month of a ground war in Iraq will cost approximately $22 billion,” Weiss said Tuesday. “That comes against the backdrop of an administration that promised over a year ago to provide local governments with $3.5 billion. And to quote [Homeland Security Secretary] Tom Ridge, not one dime of that money has yet been appropriated.

“I want to jump-start the federal effort to protect Los Angeles by identifying several clear and real needs that would enhance our security,” said Weiss, a member of the council’s public safety and budget committees.

Just two weeks ago, the councilman noted, Los Angeles conducted its second live and large-scale terrorist training exercise in four years. That exercise, dubbed “Operation Nighthawk,” simulated a terrorist attack at LAX, the site of a planned Al Qaeda bombing on New Year’s Eve 2000.

The recent exercise revealed “several deficiencies” in the city’s preparations for an attack that might otherwise have gone undetected, Weiss said. Among those, he said, was poor coordination among emergency medical and security personnel. “It took medical personnel far too long to reach the wounded.

“Several law enforcement officials commented about it on the night of the exercise. They told me it was the kind of problem you only discover when you run the drill,” Weiss said.

The $10 million for annual training would allow more exercises involving hundreds of responders from throughout the region, Weiss said.

In addition, he said, the region’s emergency service providers immediately need communications systems that enable police officers, firefighters and other so-called “first responders” to talk to each other without dangerous delays.

To immediately address a potential crisis, Weiss said, Los Angeles’ police and fire departments need new emergency connection systems that each cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the long term, he added in the Feb. 5 letter, the county also needs $10 million to purchase transmitter towers and other electronics equipment to create two countywide mutual aid frequencies.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) said she agrees that Southern California urgently needs more money for preventing and responding to terrorist acts.

Harman said that she and Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) have determined that Los Angeles County would be entitled to about $125 million of the $3.5 billion earmarked nationwide for homeland security.

“That would be a very good start,” said Harman, who plans to unveil a homeland security funding proposal in Washington today.