BOARDS QUIETLY CHANGE POLICING : RESIDENTS FILL 18 LITTLE-KNOWN PANELS.

Byline: Keith Stone Daily News Staff Writer

Not many people know that Community Police Advisory Boards even exist, let alone that one might have helped them.

Yet by all accounts, the 18 CPABs are changing how Los Angeles police work, whether by tipping officers to crime, organizing graffiti cleanup projects or convincing people that the LAPD is more than the biggest gang on the block.

Formed around 1994, the CPABs are part of a citywide effort to change the Los Angeles Police Department from one that had become synonymous with the Rodney King beating to one that embraces the community in a crime-fighting partnership.

The boards, made up of residents appointed by LAPD division captains, have evolved in a unique style, although each shares the same mission: to bring police and city agencies to bear on neighborhood problems.

``It forces the department to listen to the concerns of the community,'' said Los Angeles police Cmdr. Garrett Zimmon, coordinator of the Police Department's community policing campaign.

Sometimes those concerns are beyond what the division police captain had imagined: In one neighborhood, residents complained about young men drinking beer outside markets, something the captain's officers had not thought was important enough to stop.

The CPAB is designed to focus police attention on areas that concern residents the most, Zimmon said.

``It is also a vehicle that allows the Police Department to reach out and bring in those segments of the community that would not normally have access to the police,'' Zimmon said.

Top police officials concede there is no concrete way to gauge whether the CPABs are working or whether they are police-sanctioned cheerleading sections, as some critics contend.

Yet the department has embarked on an extensive self-evaluation, distributing 10-page surveys in May to several hundred CPAB members. Zimmon said the survey results, expected by the end of August, will help show ``what is working, what do people see as impediments - what are the strengths?''

``It will give us a small nugget of what they think, and most important, we will find out if we are really working with the community,'' Zimmon said.

Some people already say the CPABs are a success.

``Crime is down in the area,'' said Eric Reuveni, co-chairman of the North Hollywood Community Police Advisory Board. ``In the past, we've had crime hot spots. Those now are looked at by the CPAB, and they become projects for the year.''

Others dismiss the police-appointed advisory boards as well-intentioned shills for the department.

``They have more control than they should have,'' said Genethia Hayes, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Los Angeles.

``I don't see community police working as well as it should have worked after all this time. That may be more telling,'' Hayes said. ``I still see young African-American males laid out on the streets. We still have people call us and tell us they were stopped for no apparent reason.''

Zimmon said the division captains choose people they believe represent all segments of the community, including those who otherwise might have no contact with the police.

``We are not necessarily looking for people who think the Police Department is the best in the world,'' Zimmon said.

What supporters and critics of CPABs agree on is that the boards are all but invisible to the community - and that has to change.

``Probably the basic person wouldn't even know it exists, the Community Police Advisory Board,'' said the Rev. Kevin Nolan, a Van Nuys CPAB member. ``But I've been very impressed.''

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Photo: (color) Serving as police chaplain and community lia ison, the Rev. Rafael Marin-Leon jokes with Al Sanchez's daughter. See Page 10.

John McCoy/Daily News