POLICE, FIRE BONDS MAY BE TOUGH SELL.

Byline: Patrick McGreevy Daily News Staff Writer

Political experts warned a city panel Monday that it will be hard to get Los Angeles voters to approve nearly $1.6 billion in bonds for police and fire stations next year, partly because the public distrusts City Hall.

The Blue Ribbon Committee On Public Safety Infrastructure sought advice from pollster John Fairbank and City Controller Rick Tuttle while it wrestles with proposals by the Los Angeles Police and Fire departments and the Information Technology Agency to seek voter approval of up to $1.597 billion in bonds for new city facilities.

``These public safety bonds are very difficult to pass. Not many of them pass,'' Fairbank told the panel. ``Voters are looking at all public institutions as not spending money as efficiently as possible.''

To overcome that distrust, Fairbank and Tuttle urged the task force to create an oversight system for any bond measure, guaranteeing voters that the money will be spent as promised without delays and cost overruns.

Tuttle suggested an oversight committee similar to the group that manages school bond revenues under Proposition BB, the Los Angeles Unified School District's $2.4 billion bond measure.

``The days when voters, by the required two-thirds, approve `pots of money' for ill-defined projects that take indeterminable amounts of time to complete are over,'' Tuttle said. ``So even if that is the preferred course of action by some in the city, it is unlikely to be politically successful.''

Unlike 1989 and 1991 Los Angeles police bond measures, which included projects that have taken more than five years to build, Tuttle recommended that the new proposal only include specific projects that are top priorities and can be built within five years.

City officials must present a united front of support for any bond measure, identify each construction project to be financed and illustrate how it will benefit the voter, such as how it might improve police and paramedic response times, said Fairbank, a member of a political consulting firm that worked on the recent, successful zoo and library bond measures.

He said the bonds might have a chance of success if ``there is a sense of urgency or crisis'' among the voters.

The blue ribbon committee of business leaders, which was appointed by Mayor Richard Riordan and City Council President John Ferraro, received proposals Monday totaling $790 million for the LAPD, $752 million for the Fire Department and $55.3 million for the Information Technology Agency.

The police bond includes a $130 million for replacement of Parker Center and $30 million for construction of a sixth police station in the San Fernando Valley.

While interested in what the city might have to do politically to get bonds approved, committee Chairman Bill Siart said that is not the job of the panel.

``Our job is to evaluate what should be put on the ballot,'' he said.