CRIME LAB SPAT YET TO BE RESOLVED.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

The first meeting Friday of top officials charged with planning the badly needed new crime lab for Los Angeles County police agencies brought up old conflicts and exposed the disarray that has stalled the $96 million project for years.

Sheriff Lee Baca, Los Angeles Police Department Chief Bernard C. Parks and other officials ran straight into District Attorney Steve Cooley, who accused them of trying to muzzle his advisory panel of smaller law enforcement agencies that fear their needs won't be met.

Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, offered himself as a mediator who wants to get the lab built despite Gov. Gray Davis' recent budget veto that killed $82 million the state had promised for the project.

``I'm here to make sure this lab opens,'' Hertzberg said. ``I'm going to write a bill so the revenue bonds are in the budget and nothing falls through the cracks.''

Details are still being ironed out, but officials believe the funding could be provided without a public vote.

With only $14 million left in its budget, the five-member board - called the Los Angeles Regional Crime Laboratory Facility Authority - voted unanimously to spend $465,200 to hire architect Fields Devereaux Harley Ellington to design the facility and $411,800 to hire construction management firm Jacobs Facilities Inc. to develop plans on how space will be shared by the LAPD and Sheriff's Department.

Besides Baca and Parks - who have their own disagreements over the lab - members of the state-created board are Los Angeles City Administrative Officer William T. Fujioka, county Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen and Steven N. Garcia, vice president of California State University, Los Angeles, where the lab is to be built.

At the meeting, Baca was elected chairman and Parks was elected vice chairman. Cooley is not a member of the authority, but has put together his own panel.

The peak of hostilities occurred when Fujioka proposed making Cooley's Los Angeles Crime Laboratory Advisory Board a subcommittee of the authority.

``That's unacceptable,'' Cooley shot back. ``We have been meeting for six months. The advisory board has to operate independently.''

Fujioka responded: ``Like anything else, I hope we can focus on building the building. It was never my intention to subordinate this committee.''

Afterward, Cooley accused the authority of attempting to strip the advisory panel of its autonomy. The panel includes representatives from law enforcement, victims advocate groups, prosecutors, defense attorneys and the academic and scientific communities.

``There are 45 law enforcement organizations that police one-third of Los Angeles County's population that will use this facility. They are on the advisory board,'' Cooley said. ``I didn't hear their name mentioned once in there.

``They wanted to co-opt our good efforts. But it didn't happen. I didn't acquiesce as they suggested. If they want to form their own advisory board - hey, go ahead. But don't co-opt mine because ours was formed with the specific interest of ultimately protecting the public by sharing quality forensic services.''

The original plan for a crime lab shared by the LAPD and the Sheriff's Department was contained in Proposition 15, a March 2000 state bond measure that was rejected statewide, although supported by a majority of L.A. County voters. It would have created a number of regional facilities around the state.

After its failure, Baca hired former county Supervisor Edmund D. Edelman to lobby Gov. Gray Davis and state lawmakers for funding. Last fall, the state appropriated money to build the lab.

With more than 700 homicides and 1,200 sexual-assault cases remaining unsolved because of a backlog of DNA testing at the Sheriff's Department's crime lab alone, law enforcement agencies throughout the county are frustrated by the inability of Baca and Parks to agree on what facilities and equipment they intend to share at the lab.

``There are critical shortages in DNA resources, firearms and latent (finger)prints,'' Cooley said at the meeting.

After the meeting, Baca said he and Parks have agreed to ``share a number of things, but I don't have the list.''

Cooley said no agreement to share facilities or equipment has been reached.

``That's a work in progress,'' he said. ``They are talking about it. The first concept here was sort of a B-1 bomber - two big wings with a shared bathroom at the center. They have come a long way since then, to their credit.

``But it took us and others in the justice system, through raising questions and eyebrows, and now they are definitely working on it. They have an informal group for resource-sharing that will make for a better lab because they are considering shared space and shared equipment.''

Sheriff's Scientific Services Bureau Lt. Nicholas Berkuta said the LAPD and Sheriff's Department are talking about sharing a lunchroom and locker rooms, hallways, test equipment, stock room and firearms collection library.

``The theory we are operating under is shared space, shared equipment and training as well as integrating protocols in relation to the District Attorney's Office,'' Baca said.