Voters Will Get a Chance to Weigh In on Possible Merger of Airport Police, LAPD

The City Council voted Tuesday to take the first step toward merging the police force that patrols Los Angeles International Airport with the LAPD, placing a measure on the May ballot to delete a provision in the City Charter that requires an independent airport force.

City Council members cautioned, however, that many questions remained about how the merger would be accomplished. If the ballot item is approved, the council will still have to vote to combine the agencies.

“Let me make it perfectly clear: We’re not talking today about whether these two agencies should be merged,” said Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski. “If this is approved, we have to roll up our sleeves and look at what model might be best.”

Tuesday’s 11-1 vote requires the city attorney to draw up language for the charter-amendment measure, which will appear on the May 17 general election ballot. The measure would need a simple majority to pass.

City leaders have debated combining the airport force with the Los Angeles Police Department for more than a decade. The airport police work to prevent crime; the LAPD responds primarily after a crime occurs at LAX. Tuesday’s action marks the first time the City Council has moved toward a merger.

“This is a tremendous step forward,” said Councilman Jack Weiss. “I went to the El Al terminal in July 2002 and saw how that terrorist was able to shoot up that airport. This is finally going to give us the opportunity to make significant changes.”

When he was police chief, Councilman Bernard C. Parks proposed a merger in his 1998 “One City -- One Police Department” plan. The council rejected the proposal.

Weiss resurrected the debate after the July 4, 2002, shooting at an El Al Israel Airlines ticket counter in the Tom Bradley International Terminal, but the merger concept failed to gain political support.

That attack left three dead, including the gunman, and raised questions about deployment mix-ups and communication snafus among the agencies that responded, including airport police and the LAPD.

The merger idea resurfaced after a series of high-profile incidents last year involving airport police, including a high-speed SUV crash in Inglewood that critically injured a pedestrian and a TV report that showed airport police loafing on the job.

LAPD Chief William J. Bratton and other high-level law enforcement figures have endorsed combining the two departments.

“I’m happy to see this moving forward in the direction I would like to see,” Bratton said in an interview Tuesday. “This would provide significant public safety benefits and economic benefits.”

Councilwoman Janice Hahn, who cast the lone dissenting vote, said the city spent two years and held more than 300 meetings in efforts to draft the new charter that the electorate approved in 1999.

“Voters have decided that they want it in this fashion. They want the port police and the airport police to be autonomous,” Hahn said. “What’s the rush? We’ve been told this could take two years.”

She called for the council to put off any action until it received a study by Counter Technology Inc. that the city Airport Commission commissioned. The report, expected by Feb. 28, will examine how the city could combine the LAPD and airport police and will estimate the cost.

Representatives of the airport force echoed Hahn’s concerns.

“It looks like the council wants to dissolve the airport police,” Sgt. Leon Nixon, president of the Los Angeles Supervisors Peace Officers Assn., told the council. “A ballot measure should not drive an objective study of Los Angeles police resources.”

Many questions remain about how a merger would work.

The council would have to decide how to provide security at Ontario International Airport and Palmdale Airport, both of which the L.A. airport agency runs and the airport police patrol. And the council would need to figure out how to integrate into the LAPD the unarmed traffic officers who work for the airport police.

Combining the forces would save money, city leaders agreed Tuesday. City Administrative Officer William Fujioka disputed estimates cited last month by the airline industry that a merger could cost $45 million.

“That is not a correct figure. It makes some assumptions I believe will not occur,” he told the council. “If the airport police merge with the LAPD, we know -- based on our experience with the MTA [police force] merger -- that there are many steps that must take place before we can assign costs.”