CITY WILL BUY INTERIM BUILDING FOR LAPD.

Byline: - Harrison Sheppard

The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved plans Friday to buy a downtown building for a temporary police headquarters while a new headquarters is being built rather than have police remain in Parker Center.

City officials are looking to build a new headquarters, probably at First and Alameda streets in Little Tokyo, where the city recently bought property for city employee parking. The cost of the new building has been estimated at $200 million to $300 million.

Los Angeles Police Department officials do not want to wait as long as five years for the new building to be completed. Parker Center, they say, is unsafe. On Friday the council voted unanimously to authorize officials to begin negotiating to acquire a building for temporary use.

Once the Police Department moves to its permanent new home, the interim location will be occupied by other city agencies, which will save money on space now being leased.

Councilman Nate Holden complained that the city bureaucracy was trying to ram the Parker Center plans through without enough council involvement, calling it ``another railroad job.'' He called the project too expensive at a time the city is facing a serious budget crunch.

``You're not going to have the money in the future unless you put the taxpayers more in debt by floating a bond to acquire more space and buy a building you may not really need right now,'' Holden said.

City voters have rejected past attempts to issue bonds that would increase local property taxes to replace Parker Center, so officials are now looking at a financing plan involving bonds that do not require voter approval because they do not raise property taxes. The bonds for the new Parker Center would cost around $20 million to $30 million a year from the city's general fund for 30 years.

Buying a building to use as temporary headquarters would cost the city about $2 million more per year in the first five years above what it is paying in leases, according to Chief Legislative Analyst Ron Deaton. But after other city departments move in, the city would experience a net savings because of reduced lease costs, he said.

``Although there is a short-term out-of-pocket cost compared to leases of roughly $2 million a year, in the long term, at five to 10 (years) and beyond, it will economically be beneficial to the city to make this move if we can make the numbers work,'' Deaton said.

Other council members, including former Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, said the project is badly needed and the city is smart to try to reduce its reliance on leases.

``Having spent 12 to 15 years of my career in LAPD in Parker Center, it is well past time to replace Parker Center,'' Parks said. ``I think it's reasonable in the way we're going about it. I think it's reasonable to seek building we then own. We then cut down on leasing costs.''

Councilman Tom LaBonge said he would like to see the department decentralize some of its functions to areas such as the San Fernando Valley, particularly transit-friendly areas of North Hollywood. Police Department officials have resisted the idea, saying they prefer to have most functions in one place.