GM Donates Land for Valley Police Station

One week before voters decide on a $171-million bond issue to finance new police facilities, city officials Tuesday announced that auto giant General Motors has donated five acres of its shuttered Panorama City plant for a new San Fernando Valley police station.

A phalanx of officials, led by Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon, who authored the bond measure, turned out for a news conference to herald the gift, calling it a major plum for the city as it struggles to expand and house its police force.

Both Mayor Richard Riordan and Police Chief Willie L. Williams, despite reports of an apparent feud, attended the event, using the opportunity to stump for next week’s Proposition 1.

Yet the increasingly tense relationship between Williams and the mayor could undermine what has so far been a low-key campaign to pass the measure, political observers say. The chief reportedly blames Riordan for fomenting opposition against him. Last week, Riordan’s appointees to the Police Commission reprimanded Williams for allegedly accepting a free hotel stay in Las Vegas.

Nonetheless, both presented a united front when speaking on behalf of the proposition Tuesday.

“Today’s announcement adds a lot of horsepower to our efforts to boost safety in Los Angeles,” Riordan told the group of reporters and residents gathered at the Panorama Mall. The partnership with GM “demonstrates that we’re doing business more creatively than before,” Riordan said, urging a yes vote on the bond issue.

Williams, whose leadership has been clouded by a recent ethics investigation, added his support, describing the upcoming vote as a “life-or-death matter” for public safety. “We don’t have one facility in this city that meets our current staffing needs.”

The donation would provide space for a mid-Valley police station that was promised to voters as part of a successful 1989 bond measure but which has yet to reach the drawing board. Alarcon, in whose district the station would be located, said Tuesday that GM’s donation and passage of the bond measure would speed up construction of the station and shave up to $10 million from the project by eliminating real estate and transaction costs.

“We would be looking at a window from two to three years” to build the station, whose 250 officers would patrol one of the city’s most crime-ridden pockets, Alarcon said. Without the funding guaranteed by the bond measure, a new Valley station could take as long as five years to get off the ground as officials search for cash in the city’s tightened budget, Alarcon said.

In addition to the Valley facility, the ballot measure earmarks money for a new station in the Mid-Wilshire area, three new parking structures and replacement stations for the Rampart and Hollenbeck divisions.

Local officials ranging from Riordan to his predecessor, Tom Bradley, and numerous civic organizations have endorsed Proposition 1, which would raise property taxes on average by about $10 a year. Proponents contend that the bond measure is crucial to the effort to add new officers to the force and to improve response time to emergencies.

But observers say a more fiscally conservative political climate, coupled with concern over how the last police bond measure delivered less than promised, makes winning the required two-thirds majority vote a Herculean task.

In addition, the soured relationship between Riordan and Williams could hurt the proposition.

At Tuesday’s news conference, the two men--among the city’s most popular officials--sat next to each other after a smiling Riordan shook hands with a stony Williams. Sweating beneath the hot sun, the pair exchanged desultory comments but did not speak extensively.

Although both men back Proposition 1, Richard Lichtenstein, a Democratic political consultant, said the controversy swirling around the chief “lends an air of uncertainty for voters,” he said, “and uncertainty usually translates into more negative votes than positive votes.”

Lichtenstein, who worked on the campaign to pass the $176-million bond measure five years ago, credited Proposition 1 advocates with running a “very impressive” campaign on a limited budget. The GM donation should help sway voters in the Valley, but Lichtenstein said he doubts that the news will be enough to push the bond measure over the top citywide.

“No single event in and of itself gives you that kind of bounce with the numbers,” he said.

Still, proponents of the bond measure clearly hoped to capitalize on the timing of Tuesday’s announcement. Alarcon said GM’s contribution would help “build back the confidence” of voters who may have felt cheated after the 1989 bond issue failed to make good on all its promises.

“It certainly is politically advantageous,” Geoffrey Garfield, head of the pro-Proposition 1 campaign, said of the announcement. “But I’m not going to swing and miss on purpose just because people question the coincidence.”

The exact location of the dedicated five acres on the GM lot has yet to be determined. Those details will be worked out once the Detroit-based company settles on a buyer for the 75 acres that remain on sale, said GM representative Matthew Cullen.

Several developers have entered bids for the abandoned plant, which in its heyday churned out Camaros and Firebirds, but no agreement has been reached. Cullen said all candidates to buy the property have agreed to integrate the new police station into their site plans.

Along with Proposition 1, Riordan and Williams have endorsed a second ballot measure regarding police procedures used to resolve complaints of misconduct filed against sworn officers.

Among other provisions, Charter Amendment 2 would allow an officer to continue receiving pay for up to 30 days while waiting for a police panel to investigate and decide a misconduct complaint against him or her. The measure would also grant the chief authority to reinstate an officer temporarily relieved of duty because of a misconduct charge. Other changes would streamline the hearing process when misconduct complaints have been filed.

No formal opposition has sprung up against the proposed amendment.