L.A. ELECTIONS / BALLOT MEASURES : GM Donates 5 Acres for Police Station : Riordan and Chief Williams applaud gift of land at the company’s closed Van Nuys plant. They say it adds impetus to Proposition 1, the bond issue for new LAPD facilities.

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

Both Mayor Richard Riordan and Police Chief Willie L. Williams, despite reports of a feud between them, participated in a news conference near the old Van Nuys auto plant to stump for next week’s Proposition 1.

The increasingly tense relationship between Williams and Riordan, culminating in an ongoing Police Commission ethics investigation of the chief, could undermine what has so far been a low-key campaign to pass the bond measure, political observers say. The chief reportedly believes Riordan has fomented opposition against him. Riordan’s appointees to the Police Commission have reprimanded Williams for poor management of the department and for allegedly accepting free rooms or meals from a Las Vegas casino and then lying about it.

Nonetheless, on Tuesday the men presented a united front when speaking on behalf of Proposition 1, which would allow the city to raise money for new stations in the mid-Valley and the Mid-Wilshire district, replacement stations in the Rampart and Hollenbeck divisions and three new parking structures.

The measure--which requires a two-thirds vote--would raise property taxes an average of about $10 a year per household.

Williams and Riordan, along with City Councilman Richard Alarcon, the author of the bond measure, heralded GM’s gift as a major plum for a city struggling to expand and house its police force.

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

Williams called the upcoming vote a “life-or-death matter” for public safety. “We don’t have one facility in this city that meets our current staffing needs,” he said.

GM’s donation would provide space for a mid-Valley police station, which was promised to voters as part of a successful 1989 bond measure but has yet to reach the drawing board. Alarcon, whose district includes the proposed station, said GM’s donation and passage of the bond measure would speed construction of the station and shave up to $10 million from the $35-million 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, he said.

Local officials ranging from Riordan to former Mayor Tom Bradley and numerous civic organizations have endorsed Proposition 1. Proponents contend that the measure is crucial to the effort to improve response time to emergencies.

However, 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.

At Tuesday’s news conference, Williams and Riordan, who are among the city’s most popular officials, sat next to each other after a smiling mayor shook hands with a stony-faced chief. Sweating beneath the hot sun, the pair exchanged 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, and uncertainty usually translates into more negative votes than positive votes.”

Lichtenstein, who worked on the campaign to pass the $176-million bond measure in 1989, 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.

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 for 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 procedure 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 from duty because of a misconduct charge. Other changes would streamline the hearing process when misconduct complaints have been filed.