BOND FOR POLICE, FIRE UPGRADES FALLING SHORT.

Byline: Rick Orlov Daily News Staff Writer

Backed with unprecedented City Hall guarantees to deliver on promises, a $744 million bond issue for police and fire facilities was falling short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage in Tuesday's election.

Mayor Richard Riordan, the City Council and top bureaucrats publicly pledged to spend Proposition 1 funds as set out in the bond measure - a step necessitated by the city's failure to deliver on bond issue promises in the past.

Riordan said he was disappointed with the trend of returns and expected the measure to fail. He had not yet determined what to do to meet the city's needs for more police and fire facilities.

``We thought the safeguards we had included in the measure would convince voters,'' Riordan said. ``It would have helped us respond more quickly to victims of serious accidents, heart attacks or other emergencies. We will have to look at what we can do now.''

Riordan had campaigned vigorously across the city, particularly in the San Fernando Valley, lending his personal credibility to the measure to try to win the two-thirds voter support needed for passage. It was too early to tell on Tuesday where the main opposition to the proposal came from.

``I think we (would) have to look at coming back with this to the voters,'' Riordan said. ``This is something the city needs and it's a capital expenditure that should be spread out over 30 years.''

The bond measure would cost the owner of a $160,000 home about $32.50 a year in additional property taxes over 25 years, city officials had estimated. It was designed to be the first of a four-part, $2 billion plan to upgrade police and fire facilities.

The problem Riordan and other proponents faced was voter skepticism that the city would be able to accomplish what it was proposing in the measure.

In an effort to overcome that concern the measure included two committees - one of city officials and one of private citizens with expertise in construction - to oversee the work. Of the private committee, two members would come from the San Fernando Valley, which never got a police station promised in an earlier bond issue.

There was no active campaign against the measure although the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association filed a ballot argument against it and a group involved in San Fernando Valley secession efforts, calling itself No Bonds Now, held two news conferences.

Both groups of opponents complained about the size of the measure, and No Bonds Now also questioned the timing of the measure with the prospect of the Valley seceding from the city.

However, city officials did not help themselves in winning voter support when the City Clerk's Office omitted from the sample ballot a list spelling out which projects would be built. The city was forced to send out a supplemental mailing at a cost of $344,000 to make good on Riordan's pledge to include the itemization in the sample ballot.

Also, two weeks before the election, the Los Angeles Fire Department sent out a strongly worded bill for $13 to hillside residents to pay for a brush clearance program. Because of dissatisfaction with the warning letter, the City Council voted to suspend the brush-clearance inspection fee.

Riordan and other supporters defended the bond issue as a way to replace aging and damaged facilities throughout the city. Also, the mayor argued that the facilities would be needed even if the San Fernando Valley does secede.

The ambitious plan calls for the replacement of the Parker Center police headquarters with a new 300,000-square-foot building on the same site; construction of four replacement police stations including the West Valley station; two new police stations including one in the North Valley; 17 new fire stations and a new Fire Department air operations facility in Van Nuys; and other projects.

Of the new fire stations, there would be regional stations built in Arleta, Northridge and Woodland Hills and standard stations built in Encino, Studio City and Sun Valley.

The measure was developed by two task forces analyzing future public safety needs. Those panels envision the bond measure as the first of three or four bond proposals over the next 20 years to build needed police and fire stations.