L.A. ELECTIONS / 5TH COUNCIL DISTRICT : Candidates Tap Into Voter Anxiety Over Crime : Strategy: Feuer calls for more police substations; Yaroslavsky says greater use of schools would occupy and protect young people. Both campaigns feature safety issues prominently.

One candidate’s brochure features a stark black-and-white photo of a gun pointed straight out, as if aimed between the eyes of the reader. The message, emblazoned in blood red, says: “Too many families have lived with the horror of violent crime.”

The other candidate’s glossy mailer claims: “Only one candidate for City Council has a specific plan for fighting crime.” The word crime is spray-painted in capital letters on a red-brick wall.

The message is clear: The key issue in the race for the 5th District City Council seat is crime. As candidates Mike Feuer and Barbara Yaroslavsky prepare to square off in the June 6 runoff, both have tried to tap voter anxiety by using stump speeches and campaign literature to promote their ideas for combatting crime.

Feuer, the former director of a legal service clinic, has proposed, among other ideas, establishing dozens of police substations throughout the city and staffing them with reserve officers who would undergo the same training as regular officers but earn only a $15-per-month stipend.

Yaroslavsky, a community volunteer and wife of county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, wants to offer the youth of Los Angeles an alternative to a life of gangs and crime by opening all school campuses after hours and on weekends, thus providing sites where volunteers can offer recreational and educational programs. She also proposes expanding city library and park hours.

Both proposals have some merit. But according to police and educators, neither idea is novel and both face significant financial and practical obstacles.

Although statistics indicate that crime is on the decrease, Feuer and Yaroslavsky say they have focused on crime and put out compelling campaign literature because it continues to be the top concern of voters.

Indeed, police statistics for the San Fernando Valley and West Los Angeles--the regions covered by the 5th District--showed a noticeable drop in most crime categories in 1994 compared to 1993.

Nonetheless, public opinion polls show that crime remains one of voters’ top concerns.

“The reality is people believe crime is a major problem still in Los Angeles and you need to address what the people care most about,” said Rick Taylor, campaign strategist for Yaroslavsky, who issued the mailer that proclaims her as the only candidate with the “plan for fighting crime.”

Feuer, whose campaign produced the gun mailer, agrees that crime remains a major concern. He said of the statistics: “By no means does this represent a safer society.”

Feuer teamed up with Dennis Perluss, the former counsel to the Christopher Commission, which studied the Los Angeles Police Department, to draft a plan to open more community police substations, providing additional facilities to relieve overcrowded police stations while adding a visible crime deterrent to neighborhoods.

Under his plan, the substations would be established in existing commercial space that would be donated to police by businesses. The facilities would provide computers, phones and desks so that officers could complete almost all traditional police work without having to drive long distances to their headquarters. To cut down on staffing costs, Feuer proposes using reserve officers to take complaints and file reports, freeing police to patrol the streets.

The idea of decentralizing the police force by assigning more officers to substations has strong support in the LAPD. It was one of the ideas put forward in the Christopher Commission as a key component of the so-called “community-based policing” strategy designed to make residents partners in the Police Department’s crime-fighting efforts.

But there are hurdles to implementing such an idea.

The Los Angeles Police Department has 624 civilian reserve officers, most of whom have full-time jobs and volunteer for at least two eight-hour shifts per month. Of those, 358 reserve officers have been trained at the police academy to carry guns and work in patrol cars. The remaining 266 so-called “technical reserves” do not carry weapons but can work station assignments, freeing regular officers for patrols.

In staffing a substation, police say it is important to provide regular hours of service and have the same officers work regular shifts to provide the neighborhood with continuity and stability.

Feuer acknowledges glitches in his idea, but said he would like to see the reserve program expanded to draw in more people who do not have full-time jobs, such as homemakers and retirees.

Yaroslavsky, a longtime school volunteer, also supports increasing police presence on the streets. But she has also long emphasized the idea of opening campuses after hours and on weekends as locations for recreational and educational program for children.

School officials support the idea. In fact, before Proposition 13 dramatically cut property-tax funding in 1978, such after-hour programs were offered in most every school in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

But because of funding shortages, the school district provides supervised after-hours play time only at its 475 elementary and middle schools, said Jim Sugahara, a district administrator. The district’s 49 high schools are closed after hours to all but school athletic programs or special groups that rent campus space, he said.