Connell Proposes Big Changes in LAPD

Mayoral candidate Kathleen Connell announced a series of proposals to reorganize the Los Angeles Police Department and the city’s public safety functions Tuesday, including deploying mobile police substations, assigning parking enforcement attendants to keep an eye out for crime and breaking up the city attorney’s office.

The state controller’s police proposals are the most sweeping offered by any mayoral candidate. They face substantial financial and political hurdles to becoming a reality.

Connell says the entire program would cost $130 million over four years and could be paid for by cutting the city’s liability costs and by finding additional savings through audits of the LAPD. But those savings are theoretical and in some cases would require spending in the hope of realizing long-term savings, such as fixing city sidewalks and streets to reduce liability.

With her experience as the state’s top financial officer, Connell insists that she could find money for the changes. “We are not going to ask our taxpayers to pay for any additional costs,” Connell said, “because City Hall bureaucrats have failed to deliver quality police services.”

The candidate said in her morning news conference outside Parker Center that she would increase the size of the Police Department from its current staffing of just over 9,000 officers to more than 11,000. That’s more than Mayor Richard Riordan was ever able to achieve, even during an economic boom.

Connell’s “Blueprint for a Safer L.A.” calls for re-designating 600 parking enforcement officers as “community safety officers” who would spend one-third of their time reporting crime, graffiti, potholes and threats to public safety.

Although that move would cost the city $7 million in lost parking ticket revenue, Connell contends she could replace that money through audits and other savings.

Connell also called for doubling the number of officers working with community groups from 160 to 320. The so-called “senior lead officer” program was recently reinstated by Riordan and Police Chief Bernard C. Parks.

Connell said she would like to see a better use of computer data to redeploy officers to trouble spots. She would support officers on the street with 120 new mobile “mini-substations,” which would cost about $300,000 each. New York City uses such mobile stations to target high-crime areas.

“We can move in and put an attack on the problem,” Connell said. “When gangs move, we can move and keep after them.”

Mitzi Grasso, president of the police officers union, lauded the idea of mobile substations, but added: “We do not have the manpower to do that right now.”

To stem attrition that has been draining the LAPD of hundreds of officers, Connell supports a four-day workweek for police and improved pensions. She has helped write pending legislation that would provide $7,500 to help officers buy homes in the cities they serve. The loans would be forgiven for officers who spend five years on the force.

Finally, Connell said, the city would be able to keep better tabs on the Police Department if the city attorney’s office is broken into two separate departments--a prosecution branch to be headed by an elected official and a chief counsel’s branch, appointed by the mayor to advise city departments and the people.

“The city attorney’s office has been compromised by conflicting roles,” Connell said. “The city attorney is asked to serve both as prosecutor of crimes in the city and the Police Department and at the same time to defend those officers.

“Rampart, in my mind, would never have unfolded at the rate that it did if we did not have the city attorney being asked both to defend the police and to root out corruption,” she said.

The idea of dividing the city attorney’s office was tried, then reversed, by city leaders early in the last century. Riordan resurrected the idea in 1999, but the two commissions studying city charter reform decided it was important to keep the attorney advising city agencies independent, rather than appointed by the mayor. Both charter reform commissions rejected the idea.

Still, Connell said, she would move ahead quickly to put the question before voters.