SAFETY PANEL HEARS VALLEY POLICING NEEDS.

Byline: Amy Collins Daily News Staff Writer

In its first meeting out of Los Angeles City Hall, the City Council's Public Safety Committee visited the San Fernando Valley on Monday, drawing nearly 300 people to discuss changes in community policing.

The new Los Angeles police chief is restructuring the popular program so that senior lead officers spend more time on patrol.

``It's important that we move forward,'' Chief Bernard C. Parks told the commission.

By holding the meeting at Monroe High School, Councilwoman Laura Chick, chairwoman of the committee, said she hoped the location would involve more people from the community.

``I think it was very good for Chief Parks to hear from the community again - and vice versa,'' Chick said after the meeting.

And hear Parks did.

Many of the speakers affiliated with Neighborhood Watch groups challenged Parks' plans, saying they are attached to the senior lead officers who provide individualized attention to neighborhoods.

``The people of Los Angeles are angry,'' Page Miller, a member of North Hollywood Neighborhood Watch, said of the changes.

She said she worries that the reorganized community policing program will end neighborhoods' direct access to the department through meetings, newsletters and voice mail.

But Parks reiterated that those things will not end. ``The activities that are going on will be enhanced,'' he said.

``Senior lead officers are not going anywhere. They are getting in their cars,'' Parks said. The plan is to put more officers in the street, increasing by eight times the number of officers directly involved with community policing.

Last week, Parks revived a decades-old Los Angeles Police Department policy of publishing a ``Management Paper'' to open discussion on policing issues. In his inaugural issue, he explains that community policing is the third phase of policing models.

In the 1940s, there was the somewhat corrupt ``political'' model, associated with police chiefs tied to elected officials, Parks wrote. By the 1960s and 1970s, the ``professional'' model was developed. This style was epitomized by the ``just the facts, ma'am,'' approach used in the TV series ``Dragnet.''

But as technology allowed officers to do their jobs more efficiently, it also alienated them from the community. The evolution of community policing is a reaction to those changes, Parks said.

Until the new structure is perfected and in place, several transitions can be expected. ``We will move slowly on this,'' Parks said.

Chick said future meetings will be held at three other high schools throughout Los Angeles. The four schools - each of which has a contingent of cadets from the Junior Police Academy - were picked so students nearing voting age could be involved with their government.

The movable meetings are an extension of what Chick endorsed for the City Council meetings, which occasionally have been held beyond City Hall.