COUNTERPOINT: PROPOSITION 1 : FINE PRINT SHOWS MEASURE TO BE ONE MORE CITY RIP-OFF.

Byline: Walter Prince

VALLEY residents who think Proposition 1 is going to buy them more police and fire protection had better read the fine print on this ridiculous piece of City Hall doublespeak.

Proposition 1 is only the latest in a long line of city pork barrels, and it certainly won't be the last. Valley voters turn out in such large numbers that they can single-handedly stop the massive money drain, and we should be prepared to do exactly that April 13.

Of the $744 million, plus interest, the city wants us to pay for ``police and fire safety,'' only $89 million is being spent for new facilities. These are the new police station that has been promised to the Valley for years, and a new police station and a small fire station on the other side of the hill. These three buildings account for only 12 percent of the total being borrowed.

The downtown bureaucrats intend to spend the remaining 88 percent, or $655 million, to play musical chairs all over the city. The game here is to tear down more than two dozen perfectly good buildings and replace them with new ones that will give city administrative employees a little more elbow room at their work stations.

There is absolutely no rational justification for such a massive expense, especially when the city doesn't have enough funds to increase the numbers of police and fire personnel who are needed on the streets, rather than shuffling papers at city desks.

Some of the more ridiculous individual items to be paid for by the bonds include $41 million to replace a Fire Department maintenance facility for 30 helicopters based at Van Nuys airport. The city says this is necessary because the existing facility is so cramped that pilots cannot safely take off and land and don't have enough room to fill their water tanks before responding to a brush fire.

What the city doesn't say is that the Fire Department owns only 6 helicopters. The remaining 24 belong to other city departments that have taken over part of the Fire Department facility.

The city is also spending $5 million of the bond funds on architects to design a new jail for the civic center. Never mind that there is no money ($40.4 million) to build the jail. Apparently it is more important to have a nice drawing made.

The fine print also shows that although the city intends to rebuild Parker Center ($90.4 million) the bond contains no money to tear it down ($7.4 million). The city also plans to build a new $34.8 million parking structure for downtown. Unfortunately, the bonds will provide only $17.4 million, which is enough to build half the structure. The other half presumably will be built during Phase 2 of the city's overall construction program, maybe eight or 10 years from now.

Speaking of Phase 2, the fine print also shows that this $744 million bond issue is only the tip of the iceberg. The city officials' master plan is to ask for $2 billion in bonds, plus interest, to be financed by the taxpayers in four phases over the next 20 years. I guess they forgot to mention it.

They also forgot to mention the increased costs to maintain the new buildings. Not only is there an upfront cost of $3 million to the city just to get the bonds issued, but also buried in the fine print are such facts as the additional $200 million we must pay out of the General Fund to operate and maintain the facilities for the next 20 years.

There is also the matter of fire equipment to be purchased, plus $2.4 million for police station equipment, furniture and vehicles, and $14 million per year in salaries for the additional 180 fixed-post police positions. That, too, comes from the General Fund, which is running in the red to the tune of about $50 million per year. That's another little secret, of course, that won't be made public until the mayor's budget is submitted to the City Council a week after the April 13 election passes into the pages of history.

As for other nightmares, the city intends to spend $455 per square foot for the replacement fire stations, and $588 per square foot for the police stations. In real life, the experts at R.S. Means Co., the world's largest gatherer of construction cost data, say that a top-quality fire station should cost no more than $137 per square foot, and a police station about $187 per square foot. For comparison, the station built by the developer at Porter Ranch about three years ago cost less than $100 per square foot. If he had allowed the city to build it, the developer would have had to spend $10.5 million for the same building.

Last is the big lie about the cost to the taxpayers. The city claims the owner of a $162,000 house will pay for the bonds at the rate of $31.29 per year for the next 24 years. But the fine print actually says the cost will be next to nothing for the first four years, and then it will jump to $56.70 per year for the owner of the $162,000 house. Of course, properties assessed at other values will pay proportionately higher or lower amounts.

There is also the nagging question of who pays for the bonds if the Valley secedes from the rest of Los Angeles in the year 2002. If Valley residents vote for the bonds, they may still be held responsible to pay for the bonds, even though they break away from the rest of the city and do not get the benefits derived from half-finished parking lots, nice drawings of new jails, and the use of fire stations on the other side of the hill.

Every Valley resident should read the fine print and vote no on Proposition 1. This is the only way we can send a message to City Hall to stop playing games with our money.

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Photo: (Color) A patio in the West Valley police station has been converted into a work area.