CAPTAIN TOUTS TIES TO REGION\Sheriff's official targeting safety.

Byline: R.A. Hutchinson Daily News Staff Writer

When Bill McSweeney takes command of the Lost Hills sheriff's station in March, his favorite change will be the commute.

"I can walk to the Lost Hills station faster than I can drive to Whittier," he said.

McSweeney, an Agoura-Westlake Village area resident for the past 13 years, has been promoted to captain by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

He will take over at Lost Hills in mid-March when Capt. Jerry Walker retires. The station provides police service to Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Chatsworth, Hidden Hills, Malibu, Topanga and Westlake Village.

As station commander, McSweeney sees his challenge as maintaining the reputation established by the Lost Hills department as a relatively crime-free area.

"I'm inheriting one of the safest communities in all Southern California. I sure don't want to lose that label (under) my watch," the 44-year-old California native said. "That's kind of a challenge for me to keep that from reversing."

He plans to draw on his community roots for input on how to carry out those goals. For the past six years, he and his family have lived in Westlake Village. The seven years before that, they lived in Agoura.

As the father of three, McSweeney also has coached community baseball and football teams for many years, meeting parents and other members of the community.

"I know hundreds of families in the area. That's going to help me in a lot of ways," McSweeney said.

Already, people who've met McSweeney call him if they want a particular crime issue addressed. He then puts them in touch with the appropriate local authority.

"I know that will accelerate. And I welcome that," he said.

McSweeney also will draw on his 21 years of law enforcement experience.

He first joined the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department as a deputy in 1974. Dictated by tradition, his first assignment was in the custodial division at the county jail.

"At that time I was kind of an adventurer, or at least I thought of myself that way," he said. "I was interested in doing 'good-guy' work."

As a deputy on the graveyard shift, McSweeney said he learned about the lives and personalities of criminals - a wake-up experience for the young man who had attended the University of Colorado in Boulder before graduating from Cal State Northridge with a degree in political science.

"It is an eye-opener, and it gets you accustomed to police work," he said of the jail work. "You get young officers in there who are curious about the prisoners. They ask them about their lives. Those conversations, over time, are very enlightening."

After paying his dues at the jail, McSweeney moved on to join a special task force at the West Hollywood station. The Special Problems Unit attacked the prostitution business that was flourishing to the detriment of merchants trying to do legitimate business in West Hollywood.

"People who have to live with (prostitution) know how much it can bring down a neighborhood," he said.

McSweeney later served as a patrol supervisor at the West Hollywood location and at the Lennox Station in southwest Los Angeles. His resume also includes serving in 1985 and 1986 as the Sheriff's Department's advocate to the California State Legislature, working in the Internal Affairs Bureau, and most recently as coordinator for the Recruit Training Bureau at the Sheriff's Academy in Whittier.

"My main thing has been in dealing with curriculum here," McSweeney said.

One of his concerns is the application process for candidates wanting to join police forces. Police training focuses heavily on skills and class performance, but McSweeney believes the trainee's mental attitude needs to receive as much attention.

"After a Mark Fuhrman incident what do you do in your academy to smoke out people with those kinds of attitudes? Temperament and attitude need to be scored just as aggressively," he said.