PARKS PROPOSES TRIMMING ANOTHER LAYER ON FORCE.

Byline: Patrick McGreevy Daily News Staff Writer

LAPD Chief Bernard Parks announced a major reorganization of the command structure at the city's 18 police stations Thursday, proposing again to eliminate a level of management between him and patrol officers.

A month after eliminating the position of assistant chief, Parks told his command staff in a special session Thursday that he plans to eliminate the position of patrol captain between patrol officers and area captains, who head each police station.

Parks said the second phase of the reorganization he began in August will give him and his deputy chiefs a better handle on crime-fighting efforts and will serve to further the department's move toward community-oriented policing.

Some elements of the plan are still in draft form and may change, but he asked his field commanders to begin thinking about how they would make the plan work, according to Cmdr. Dave Kalish, a department spokesman.

West Valley Area Capt. Valentino Paniccia said he has long had a ``hands on'' approach that has given him a lot of contact with every aspect of his station's operations, but he welcomed the structural change for giving him a more direct role in community relations and overseeing patrol officers.

Under the old system, each police station had an area captain, who is the top administrator, and a patrol captain, usually from a lower pay grade, who oversaw the watch commanders, patrol officers and senior lead officers who promote community policing.

Under that system, if a member of the public told Paniccia about a crime problem, say drug dealing on a certain corner, the area captain would tell the patrol captain, who would tell the watch commander, who would pass the information on to the patrol officers.

Under the new system, the patrol captain is removed so that Paniccia will be directly over the watch commanders and patrol officers, where he can more closely oversee the field forces.

In addition, the senior lead officers who are the station's liaisons with the community will also be directly under the area captain, giving him a more direct line to the public.

``Everything had to go through another person,'' Paniccia said of the old system. ``Now, there's one less level to go through. If a member of the community tells me about a problem, the response from me to my patrol officers is immediate.''

Going up through the organization, the area captains would report to deputy chiefs, who head the geographical bureaus, who in turn report to the chief.

Parks' reorganization would take the patrol captain positions and reassign them as ``operations support'' officers who would directly oversee the detectives, the vice units, anti-gang details and crime analysis details.

That would eliminate the need for commanding officer positions over detectives that are held by lieutenants, Kalish said.

Kalish said the reorganization would move the lieutenants to serve as administrative officers assigned to handle the day-to-day paperwork and other administrative duties that currently distract the area captains.

``We're talking about flattening the organization to remove levels of bureaucracy so there is better communication,'' Kalish said.

Word of the reorganization filtered out to City Hall and patrol officers Thursday, generally drawing praise, but also questions.

``We probably had too many levels of review in the department anyway,'' said Dave Hepburn, president of the police union.

Hepburn said that ``in theory,'' the elimination of two levels of command staff should result in patrol officers getting clearer, less filtered messages from the chief about what he wants them to do.

Some officers have complained in the past that they are not sure what the chief wants because they get so many different messages after the chief's vision is filtered down through the bureaucracy.

However, Hepburn said the union has asked to sit down with Parks to get a better handle on the the new role of lieutenants, who are represented by the union.

Councilwoman Laura Chick, who heads the council's Public Safety Committee, said it appeared the chief was trying to be innovative, but she complained that the chief had failed to tell council members of his plans.