Future of L.A. Police Substations in Question

They popped up like gourmet coffee shops, occupying corners of shopping malls, office buildings and busy thoroughfares throughout the city.

Now, some public officials worry that the Los Angeles Police Department’s Community OutReach Centers may have expanded too fast too soon.

The City Council’s powerful Public Safety Committee is taking a hard look at the network of mini-stations that were created to ease congestion in the city’s 18 main police stations and make the department more approachable to the public. Of the 125 centers, 113 opened in the past four years, a time when Chief Willie L. Williams was putting renewed emphasis on the department’s decades-old community policing effort.

In its own review of the network, the LAPD acknowledged that several substations have been closed for lack of use. Williams recently ordered that no more be opened until their cost and effectiveness, including whether they actually help reduce crime, are evaluated further. Questions persist about whether the substations’ expense is justified by the number of civilians who use them.

Several police and government officials defend the substations as important symbols of community policing, the law-enforcement method in which officers work with the public to prevent crime, rather than simply respond to crimes.

But police officials acknowledge that they have lost track of the substations’ cost because their miscellaneous expenses have been paid for by another city department. Most are provided rent-free by businesses and council district offices, and staffed partly by volunteers. But it still proves expensive to bring the facilities up to building codes.

“The LAPD has become so used to handouts that when businesses say, ‘Here’s some space for free’ they jump and say, ‘Great! We’ll take it!’ ” said Councilwoman Laura Chick, the west San Fernando Valley representative who is head of the public safety committee. “But I think it’s time to slow down and see if it’s really increasing public safety.”

Chick also pointed out the city’s long-sought goal and evergreen campaign promise of “more cops on the street” may not be in sync with the centers, although staffing ranges from partly to mostly volunteer civilians.

*

“We’re taking officers off the street and putting them in office space,” she said. “We need to ask, Are people in the community getting frustrated by this?”

The substations began expanding about five years ago in the months after the Rodney G. King beating and the Christopher Commission report on police reform, which strongly recommended better communication with the public.

Police persuaded property owners throughout the city to donate office space they couldn’t fill during a recession, an arrangement that seemed heaven-sent for a cash-strapped department struggling to regain credibility and focus.

Today, with the imminent departure of a chief criticized for being long on style and short on substance, the police substations have become a target for scrutiny.

“It’s definitely a political hot potato,” Chick said. “But I give Chief Williams a lot of credit. I don’t think it was all his invention. I don’t think it was something that came from Parker Center. I think it came through the community.”

Records and interviews show that police were unprepared for the amount of incidental expenses at the substations for everything from drywall repair to electric bills to landscaping.

Because they were not budgeted, those expenses fall into a category for unplanned costs that are paid by the city’s Department of General Services rather than the Police Department. So the cumulative cost has been easy to overlook, officials said.

“It is easier for LAPD not to worry about what it’s costing because they’re handing it to another department,” Chick said.

*

Police have already been aware of the hidden costs. “If you looked at these as a profit-making enterprise . . . we wouldn’t be breaking even,” said Assistant Chief Mark Kroeker, an outspoken proponent of community-based policing.

Kroeker said he believes in the idea of substations but would like to see the department be more selective in choosing locations, rather than simply relying on the largess of property owners. The substations might also be more successful, Kroeker said, if the department did some advance marketing research, not unlike businesses.

Aside from concerns about the substations’ cost, there are also enough doubts about the public’s awareness and use of the centers that Williams himself has ordered that no more of them be opened until the program is thoroughly reviewed.

An LAPD report in November included a resounding thumbs-down from some commanding officers, including Capt. Richard Wahler of North Hollywood, who said four of the five substations in his area were underused, cramped spaces with worn-out furniture. Similar comments came from police in centers in Baldwin Hills and Rancho Cienega, who described broken lighting fixtures and rodent infestations.

“When the [centers] were first opened, the community was excited,” the report said, “but as time passed, the community reverted to traditional modes of contact for police business.”

The Southwest station commander said centers there “were not used at all,” according to the report, leading to the closure of three locations.

But in concluding the November report, Williams called the centers “an effective method in promoting the department’s community policing philosophy” and stressed their “positive impact in the majority of communities.”

Even while acknowledging the substations’ flaws, many police and city officials say the centers play a vital role as a gathering place for volunteers and hopeful symbol of what Kroeker called “a return to the village police officer.” Chick herself doesn’t advocate shutting down the centers, only reevaluating them.

Supporters point to other cities exploring non-traditional policing methods. Detroit, for example, announced last week that 29 McDonald’s restaurants will have police officers stationed at desks equipped with phones and office supplies.

*

L.A. County ombudsman Rudy De Leon, who helped implement community policing procedures while with LAPD in the ‘70s, said the centers are particularly important in minority communities and neighborhoods with a lot of recent immigrants.

“They [residents] bring customs and languages from other cultures,” he said. “So when they see a station in the community, they can relax. They can talk to someone in plainclothes and deal with them one-on-one.”

Bob Arzuman, a 71-year-old retiree who volunteers to answer the telephone at the San Pedro Community Service Center, said the facility is used by about a dozen residents a day.

“The people feel more at ease coming here, instead of going down to the station,” Arzuman said. “Some come here for guidance, some come to us with complaints about drug dealers.”

A visit to a police center next door to Chuck E Cheese and Pic ‘N’ Save in a Granada Hills strip mall did little to dispel accounts of underuse. On a recent weekday afternoon, two volunteers there said they had plenty of time to chat. During a 20-minute interview, no one stopped in.

“As you can see, it’s not hectic,” said volunteer Erik Lemus of Mission Hills. “You can get questions asked, things are more accessible.”

*

Wrapping up his shift at the Granada Hills center, Lemus pointed out that CPR courses and Little League meetings are held there, and it will serve as a polling site for the April 8 election.

“You may not realize how much goes on here,” stressed Irad J. Parkhurst, the other volunteer.

As he spoke to a reporter, Lemus’ eyes drifted out the front window to a dog propping its front legs on its owner’s sport utility vehicle.

Eyes still on the panting dog, he said: “Things are a little looser here. People feel more secure. They can go do their shopping at Lucky’s and then see us and go, ‘Oh, yeah, I was going to stop by the police department.’ ”

Times staff writer Matt Lait contributed to this story.