Alarcon Suggests City Bill LAX, Harbor for Security

Mayoral candidate Richard Alarcon called Wednesday for the city to boost the Los Angeles Police Department by 1,000 officers, in part by billing the city’s airport, harbor and water and power departments $75 million a year to pay for homeland security.

In a four-point plan that he personally delivered to City Council members, state Sen. Alarcon (D-Sun Valley) also called for consolidating the airport and harbor police departments into the LAPD.

After several embarrassing incidents involving airport police, the mayor and several council members have also suggested unifying command.

“I don’t think any one of us doubts that the most critical problem facing Los Angeles is public safety,” Alarcon told the council, the lone member of the public to address the panel during its meeting on the day before Thanksgiving.

Saying the issue was too important to wait until next year’s mayoral election, Alarcon urged the council to adopt his ideas as soon as possible, noting that his proposal would “expand the LAPD by at least 1,000 officers by tapping into resources that now exist.”

Public safety is shaping up to be one of the major issues in the campaign. In addition to Alarcon, Mayor James K. Hahn is being challenged by Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg and Councilman Bernard C. Parks, the former police chief.

The mayor touts his public safety record, saying he brought the city a popular police chief in William J. Bratton and that crime is down.

Still, Hahn’s efforts to expand the LAPD have been foiled, first when the City Council balked at a hiring plan saying there was no money in the budget and then again this fall when voters rejected a plan to raise the county sales tax to hire more officers.

For weeks, Parks has kept up a drumbeat of criticism against Hahn for allowing some police officers to work three 12-hour days instead of five days a week.

The other candidates are expected to weigh in with their public safety ideas soon.

The most controversial aspect of Alarcon’s plan calls for billing the city’s three independent, proprietary departments for the costs of safeguarding against terrorists.

George Jarvis, president of the Los Angeles Airport Peace Officers Assn., said Wednesday that the proposed merger may be illegal.

Former Mayor Richard Riordan was elected in the early 1990s in part by promising that he would use airport funds to hire additional LAPD officers. The Federal Aviation Administration blocked Riordan’s repeated attempts to transfer airport money to the city’s general fund, and his efforts spawned strict federal laws that prevent cities from transferring airport revenue to city coffers.

There are similar rules regarding taking money out of the Los Angeles Harbor Department.

Alarcon earlier this fall organized a class-action lawsuit against the city to stop it from transferring money from the Department of Water and Power to the city’s general fund.

Still, he said his crime plan was feasible because it earmarked funds from the proprietary departments for the specific purpose of homeland security.

Hertzberg gave the state senator “high marks for creativity.” Then, in a swipe at the mayor, Hertzberg added that all of Hahn’s solutions involve raising taxes.

Parks said he was “fully supportive of the one-city, one-police plan” and that he planned to study his rival’s ideas more closely.

The mayor suggested further study was unnecessary.

“His plan just makes no sense,” Hahn said. He predicted it would run into “all kinds of legal problems” and said it was contradictory given Alarcon’s role in the DWP lawsuit. He also said the state senator was partly to blame for Los Angeles’ failure to hire more officers.

“The problem that Los Angeles has had is that Sacramento politicians like Alarcon have voted to take money away from local government,” the mayor said.

Times staff writer Jennifer Oldham contributed to this report.