POST-9-11 SECURITY FUNDS OFTEN MISSPENT.

Byline: Michele R. Marcucci, Sean Holstege, Ian Hoffman and Troy Anderson Staff Writers

Shaken by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Congress heaped billions of dollars on America's police and rescuers for a new mission: Protect the nation, one chunk of turf at a time.

There was no time to ask how - states and cities knew best, lawmakers reasoned, and another attack might be imminent. The money soon flowed to police, firefighters, emergency workers, health departments and coroners for everything from more bomb dogs on patrol to more video cameras watching bridges and subways.

Three years later, California's public safety agencies are certainly better equipped - but not necessarily for terrorism, a newspaper investigation found after reviewing more than 2,500 homeland security documents and conducting dozens of interviews.

The examples of how the money was spent in ways that don't help in the War on Terror are numerous.

An agriculture commissioner in the central part of the state got intelligence-gathering software to file his monthly pesticide reports. Desert Hot Springs police ordered night-vision goggles to watch gangs. Kern County hired an earthquake expert. Shopping centers in Nevada County got heart defibrillators.

San Francisco and Oakland used homeland security funding to pay overtime to police anti-war protests even as the National Guard struggled to recoup 10 percent of its costs to patrol the Golden Gate Bridge and other top terror targets.

Law enforcement officials in Los Angeles County have ordered two customized security boats - costing $200,000 and $750,000 each - even though the U.S. Coast Guard already patrols the waters off the coast.

Police agencies in the county have also bought or ordered nearly $3 million in surveillance equipment - night vision goggles, high altitude cameras and vehicle tracking devices - which LAPD officials say will be used both for spying on potential terrorists and in regular criminal investigations.

Dozens of law enforcement and fire agencies in the county have bought or put in orders for nearly 60 top-of-the-line mobile command posts, hazardous material response vehicles and other counterterrorism vehicles costing up to $500,000 each.

'All kinds of doodads'

Los Angeles Police Department terrorism chief John Miller said homeland security officials are concerned about small police and fire agencies with few or no terrorist targets wasting funds on ``shiny equipment with flashing lights and all kinds of doodads.''

``They see that the next town over bought a whiz-bang command post vehicle and they want one too,'' Miller said. ``So, what you are finding in the smaller communities is that there is a duplication of effort where in all likelihood they may never use that equipment or vehicle.

``But we're not a little-fish town. We're a big-fish town. And we've gone to a great deal of trouble to spread the strategic use of these vehicles and equipment throughout the city and county to make sure we don't all buy the same stuff twice.''

The documents, mostly obtained under the California Public Records Act, show that hundreds of millions of dollars have been doled out in California with little regard to risk or threat assessments.

Since the federal funds finally began to trickle down to local officials last spring, public safety agencies in the county have qualified for $223 million in homeland security, bioterrorism and related grants.

But officials have been slow to spend the money, delayed by lengthy procurement and purchasing regulations. Of $72 million in Los Angeles County homeland security grants, officials have spent only $6.2 million.

In much of the state, local officials have spent more time deciding what to buy than training how to deal with a terrorist attack.

And they let bureaucratic inertia and turf politics get in the way of addressing critical matters, such as whether their communications systems are compatible - a key factor in the deaths of hundreds of New York firefighters on Sept. 11, 2001.

Left alone, local officials saw threats to the homeland all around - from al-Qaida, certainly, but also forest fires, drug dealers, political unrest and their own budget troubles.

Desires became needs

For some, desires became needs, and guarding the homeland turned into a shopping spree guided by sales catalogs and diverse notions of terrorism from county courthouses to town halls.

``When the (International Association of Police Chiefs) comes to L.A. in November, I think it's going to be the biggest counterterrorism Tupperware party in history,'' Miller said.

The newspapers' investigation found that although people and terrorist targets are bunched together, the money is strewed across California.

Although state officials complained that Congress' homeland security formula shortchanged large states such as California, they adopted a nearly identical approach here, basing the funding on factors unrelated to risk or threat.

Tiny Alpine County - with no identified terror targets - got 27 times more per capita as Los Angeles County, which has 180 state-identified targets, including three in the top 10 and 22 in the top 50.

Overall, the state's top 10 targets lie in five counties - yet almost half of California's allotment through last fiscal year, $128 million, went to other parts of the state, including almost $8 million to counties with no targets at all.

Much of the money set aside to pay police overtime for guarding critical sites went to guarding assets not envisioned by federal grant-givers, including elementary schools and policing anti-war protests.

Federal officials listed basic kinds of equipment for states and locals to purchase, but the Bush administration only recently has begun detailing what the equipment should do.

``It's a grim picture,'' said Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

The center released a national survey last week that found confidence in the federal government's ability to protect Americans has fallen to a crisis level - dropping to 53 percent from 62 percent last year.

``This is a major problem which we still need to face in the country. It's been three years now and we should have been much farther along than we currently are.''

Department of Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge has not been given enough authority or funding to properly protect the nation and there is no national plan with clear performance measures to guide local jurisdictions, Redlener said.

He said important advances have been made in airport security and the early detection of chemical or biological attacks.

``But if you want to cross the border with a small nuclear device, it's still a piece of cake with our borders with Mexico and Canada, or coming in by sea,'' he said.

The Department of Homeland Security told cash-strapped local governments to buy equipment first and get reimbursed later.

Swamped with orders

In the meantime, vendors were swamped by nationwide and priority military orders for the same gear while prices rose and waits lengthened.

In isolation, many cities and counties have bought incompatible radio equipment that could hinder deployment of rescuers in a major emergency.

In the county, authorities have spent $6 million for temporary equipment that allows - on a limited basis - various public safety agencies to talk to one another in a disaster.

The LAPD is in the process of purchasing three interoperable radio platform vehicles for the Los Angeles Harbor, downtown and San Fernando Valley areas.

But some emergency crews have not received training on how to use the equipment they are buying.

In the city of San Fernando, police said they have purchased protective suits and gas masks for use in a biological or chemical attack, but have not received training on how to properly put them on.

``They are sealed,'' Lt. Michael Harvey said. ``We haven't conducted the training with them yet. Once you open them up, you can't use them again.''

Police Chief Anthony P. Alba said he doesn't have enough officers or funds to pay them overtime to fill in while others receive training.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said personnel in his department have been trained how to put the thousands of protective suits on, but he's received little funding for the training exercises that would teach them the ``appropriate tactical response'' in an attack.

``What I'm talking about is what are we going to do when there is an explosion or exposure to some biological agent,'' Baca said. ``How are we going to get in there and minimize the danger to ourselves? That takes time to get people out of the patrol car and into the classroom.''

Congress labeled homeland security funds for terrorism preparedness. The billions of dollars were largely for handling the aftermath of exploding airliners, massive truck and train bombs, or attacks with chemical or biological weapons, such as anthrax or VX, or a radioactive ``dirty bomb.''

Intelligence reports said plans were afoot, and the money was needed to help victims - after the fact.

But California counties, some fearful of placing too great an emphasis on terrorism alone, took an ``all-hazards'' approach to spending the money.

They bought equipment that would help after a terrorist attack but was just as handy for what they knew well: floods, earthquakes and fires. They talked of saving lives by preventing emergencies from becoming disasters.

Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Newport Beach, who chairs the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, says the money should be used for terrorism alone.

His committee is pushing legislation to streamline the funding process and separate terrorism funds from those used for more traditional emergency response.

``A first responder's job is far more than dealing with the next terrorist attack,'' Cox said. ``But a grant program for Homeland Security should not be all-hazards.''

Washington itself still is coming to grips with the terrorism threat the nation faces. More than 90 percent of terrorist attacks employ bullets, explosives and other conventional weapons. But Washington is still debating the last attack - suicide pilots - and responding to the aftermath of potential chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attacks.

Whether its priorities are on target or misguided, California is now better prepared for disasters, man-made and natural, thanks to the open valve of federal cash.

Terrorism experts agree that the Los Angeles region is one of the most prepared metropolitan areas in the nation to both prevent and respond to a terrorist attack. The county's Terrorism Early Warning Group, a consortium of local, state and federal intelligence-gathering agencies, is viewed as a national model.

Local emergency responders say they are talking across agency and jurisdictional lines more than ever. Police and rescuers in all major cities - a combined force of tens of thousands in the county alone - now have protective suits and gas masks or self-contained breathing gear.

They are training to handle attacks with explosives and weapons of mass destruction. Bomb squads and hazardous-materials teams are better equipped than ever. There are more bomb dogs on patrol and more video cameras watching bridges, subways and other vulnerable facilities.

Public health labs are getting sophisticated instruments to identify germs and dangerous chemicals. Los Angeles County officials are constructing a state-of-the-art bioterrorism lab. Rescuers now have heat-sensitive cameras and listening devices for finding survivors, and hydraulic machines to lift away wreckage.

But while grateful for the money for equipment, training and planning, emergency response officials said they have gotten little cash - and in many cases watched it dry up - for the thing that would provide the best security: More people.

Even as the county gets tens of millions of dollars for homeland security, Baca has lost more than 1,000 personnel to attrition in the last few years and scores of the hospital emergency rooms necessary to treat those injured in an attack have closed. Statewide, the number of acute care hospitals has dropped from 525 in 1993 to 413 last year.

Federal spending for homeland security is expected to climb over the next five years to $27 billion. But the Council on Foreign Relations' task force on homeland security estimates first responders will need nearly four times as much - $98.4 billion.

But they may not get it, task force co-chairman Warren B. Rudman said, if Congress finds state and local officials spending the money for needs other than terrorism.

``It's a scandal waiting to happen,'' said Rudman, a former Republican New Hampshire senator. He predicts congressional investigations in which, ``witness after witness will be paraded up there to talk about misuses of these funds. I'm not saying it will, but that could cause funds to be cut back.''

Michele R. Marcucci, Sean Holstege and Ian Hoffman are reporters for The Oakland Tribune; Troy Anderson is a reporter for the Daily News.

Troy Anderson, [phone]

troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

5 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) LAX police Officer Dan Keehne follows Chanuk to an explosives-laden suitcase during anti-terrorism training exercises Friday.

(2 -- color) After finding explosives during a weekly training drill, LAPD K9 Rikki waits patiently for his partner, Officer Anthony Boyen.

John Lazar/Staff Photographer

(3 -- color) This air purifying respirator is an example of safety equipment purchased by the LAPD with federal homeland security funds.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer

(4 -- color) John Miller, who heads the Los Angeles Police Department's anti-terrorism department, says the agency takes special care not to buy redundant emergency equipment and vehicles.

(5) Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca says he's received little funding for the training exercises that would teach his officers the ``appropriate tactical response'' to an attack.Evan Yee/Staff Photographer