The following email conversation took place April 19, 2012 with Ramon Soto, Senior Administrative Analyst II at the Office of the City Administrative Officer and member of the Administration Oversight Committee for Prop Q.
Reclaim Rampart:
I am still confused on the matter of how the decision to use Prop Q money was allocated to Metro Division for a new headquarters. Who made that decision and when?
I am still confused on the matter of how the decision to use Prop Q money was allocated to Metro Division for a new headquarters. Who made that decision and when?
Soto:
I actually provided information about when the
decision to launch a Prop Q Phase II Program in an email I sent you on
January 18. You can actually access and print City staff reports,
Council Committee reports and Mayor and Council approval documents. Here
is an excerpt from my January 18 email to you:
In April 2009, the Mayor and Council authorized a
Phase II program for police facilities. The Council File number for that
action is 09-0698. You can access the city website at www.lacity.org
and click on Council File Management System. Once in, type in 09-0698
in the search criteria and you will access a number of related actions
on the right hand side of the screen. When you access the files
associated with the action you can read and download Council Committee
reports, Council actions and Mayor's concurrences, among other data.
You will see that the Mayor and
Council action adding the Phase II Program added two Police Academy
Projects***, the renovation of the Old Rampart Station and the renovation
of the Northeast Police Station. At that point we went ahead with
proceeding with the Old Rampart Station and two Police Academy projects,
but we held back proceeding with the Northeast station renovation at
the request of the Police Department, who wanted to explore ways to
identify additional monies to replace and not renovate that station. In
recent months, we found sufficient monies to proceed with building a new
Northeast station, which was approved by the Mayor and Council in July,
2011. The Council File number for that action is 11-1008.
Let me know if you're having problems in accessing those documents. If you cannot, I can print and mail you hard copies.
Reclaim Rampart:
I will re-read those pdfs but thus far none of them tell me the
criteria used in deciding how the prop q phase 2 money would be used. I
understand the decision was approved- but how was it arrived at? Where
can i read the discussions about which stations were in need of funding
etc. And the process used to determine greatest need. I may be mistaken
but 09-0698 is fait accompli, non?
Soto:
Council File 09-0698 provides the written record
of Prop Q Phase II approvals. If you go there, the first document in
the file is a CAO report which notes the Prop Q AOC's approval of the
Phase II Program, which was then forwarded to Council for its
consideration. It appears that once it became clear that there were
going to be significant monies available for a Phase II Program, LAPD
went to the Prop Q AOC with a request to establish a new program. As far
as criteria goes, Prop Q funds can only be used for Police facilities
and Fire Department renovations. Why these four specific projects
were proposed by LAPD (Rampart, NE Station and two Police Academy
projects) was probably because LAPD determined that these were their top
needs and probably a result of their internal analysis and
discussions as to what their priorities were, per the funds available at
the time. They then brought their priorities to the AOC (and
subsequently to Mayor and Council). If you want to know why these four
and not any other facilities were selected, you would probably need to
speak to the Police Department about them. In sum, I think I understand
what you are trying to get (the thought and selection process), but that
would be with/from LAPD. LAPD brought their four selections to the
policy makers and the policy makers approved them.
Reclaim Rampart:
Exactly. Thanks so so much.***Soto insists that the Police Academy projects and Northeast are also "new" projects. They aren't. Northeast was proposed as a renovation but it turned out the building was in such poor condition the division needed a new building. The Police Academy projects have been in negotiations since the mid 2000's, also as renovations. Negotiations were fortuitously stalled for years over the police academy projects, netting an extra 100 mil. for Prop Q and allowing for these "Phase 2" projects. The AOC likes to claim their managerial efficiency gained them the extra dollars instead of endless foot dragging. Also, Police Academy sounds like its for the cadets but insiders call it the police country club project.