BURBANK'S STRONG ARM OF THE LAW HANGING IT UP.

Byline: Donna Huffaker Staff Writer

BURBANK - Ed Skvarna navigates the sidewalk the same way in which he accomplishes any task before him - aggressively.

On Tuesday, the 47-year-old lieutenant for the Burbank Police Department hurried back and forth between the station and City Hall, where he listened to candidates vying for his job - a slot that opened when Chief Thomas Hoefel promoted the Santa Clarita resident to captain, effective Jan. 1.

So with an additional bar of brass, Skvarna will lug his belongings - including the 3-foot Yoda figure adorning the corner of the room - down the hall into a larger office with a window and continue his public service, which started in July 1979.

``I look at this (promotion) as a chance to give back to the department, give back to the community and try to improve things,'' Skvarna said.

He will replace retiring Capt. Joe Valento, who will leave the department at the end of December after 32 years of service.

Valento, 53, joined the Burbank Police Department in 1968 after serving 13 months in Vietnam as a U.S. Marine. Raised in Burbank and a graduate of Bellarmine-Jefferson High School, Valento felt working in law enforcement was a community-based way to continue serving the country.

When Valento was a rookie, officers didn't have the safety guidelines that have now, such as always having backup when investigating a crime.

``Basically we were just out in the streets. Sometimes we were out there alone. It's very different today,'' he said, noting that one of his first successes was starting the Drug Action Program. The program arose after several Burbank teen-agers immersed in the drug culture overdosed on barbiturates and heroin, he said.

Skvarna knows a lot about drug law enforcement, having been in charge of the department's narcotics detail and assigned to the Investigation Division.

Most notably, however, Skvarna pioneered the use of civil restraining orders against criminal street gang members. Now a mentor for at-risk youths at the Elmwood Achievement Center, Skvarna used to patrol that block of Elmwood Avenue back when 9-1-1 operators received roughly 90 calls of ``shots fired'' during a six-month period. Snaking through bushes in the 100 block of Elmwood, Skvarna found mayonnaise bottles of urine gang members hid to throw at police cars responding to calls.

``It was a very aggressive campaign. We had a growing gang problem and the city and the Police Department had been in a state of denial,'' he said.

Going after gangs in the manner he did led to the achievement center, where volunteers and counselors work proactively with youth. The plan, Skvarna said, is to get to the kids who have a lack of supervision and no role models and show them the importance of an education to avoid gang life.

It's the kind of guidance former gang member Rolando Duron wishes he had had.

``I was a real bad guy when I met Skvarna,'' said Duron, a 27-year-old father of two who earned his general equivalency degree during a two-year detention at the California Youth Authority. ``He'd arrest me - his job was to take care of the troublemakers. He was good at it.''

``Now I go back and thank him,'' Duron said.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- ran in Glen/Bur edition only) Capt. Ed Skvarna, left, shakes hands with outgoing Burbank Police Department Capt. Joe Valento in front of their headquarters. Skvarna will take over Jan. 1 when Valento retires.

(2 -- ran in SAC edition only) SKVARNA

John McCoy/Staff Photographer