LOS ANGELES : New Stations Can Be Built Quickly, Police Chief Insists

Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams on Thursday disputed a recent report suggesting that his department lacks the expertise to quickly build new police stations that would be authorized if voters authorize a $171-million bond issue on the June 6 ballot.

The LAPD’s construction management team is “absolutely phenomenal,” Williams said at his monthly media briefing, where he tried to stem the potential damage to Proposition 1, caused by the findings of a recently released internal report by the department.

Opponents of the measure--which would finance construction of two new precinct stations, one in the mid-Wilshire area and the other in the San Fernando Valley--have said the report’s findings cast serious doubt on whether the city could implement the bond program.

The report, presented Wednesday to the City Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Expediting Police Facilities, blamed the slow and limited implementation of the LAPD’s 1989 construction program on lack of expertise in the Police Department “to prepare for and oversee construction projects.”

As a result of such difficulties, it noted, the LAPD eventually had to cut in half the number of projects it told voters could be built by passage of the 1989 measure.

But Williams said the report only described the LAPD’s past construction management inexperience. Now the department has a highly skilled construction team that recently supervised the start-up of a new Westchester recruiting facility at a $13-million savings to taxpayers, Williams said.