Fight Brewing Over Police Station Financing Plan

GLENDALE —  With a showdown coming as early as this week, two City Council members say they will oppose a plan to help finance a new $48-million police headquarters complex without the approval of voters.

Glendale’s two newest City Council members are leading the move against the plan, proposed by City Manager David H. Ramsey, of placing the city in debt without asking voters to pass a bond issue.

Proponents are concerned about delays or even defeat of the project, which is needed, according to Police Chief James Anthony, to replace facilities that are too small and too old.

Glendale has never sold certificates of participation to finance public improvements, as Ramsey has proposed, though the practice is common among California cities and schools. Both bonds and the certificates are forms of municipal debt, but the sale of certificates of participation does not require voter approval.

Of the six options Ramsey is presenting to the council, the one he favors calls for about a third of the project’s cost to be borrowed, through the sales of the mortgage-like certificates, and for the rest to be transferred annually from reserves.

“I think it stinks,” said Councilman Dave Weaver, who was sworn into office last month.

“It bypasses the vote of the people for the expenditure of public funds,” said new Councilwoman Ginger Bremberg, who also served on the council from 1981 to 1993.

Citing the anti-tax Proposition 218 that was passed last fall, Bremberg said, “they’re already thinking about bypassing the voters.”

Behind the scenes is another, more philosophical conflict involving the use of municipal reserves. On one side is finance director Brian A. Butler, who has long criticized politicians for dipping into reserves to pay for day-to-day needs. On the other is the man who started the practice, Ramsey, who says spending reserves is necessary because of voter-imposed limits on taxation, among other reasons.

“Unfortunately, our reserves have been depleted and we are undercapitalized,” Butler said. “We started taking from . . . [reserves] to pay for consumption [through the years] . . . so [the city does not] have enough in its budget to pay for the police building.”

Historically, he said, the city has paid cash for such projects as the police complex. Borrowing funding will hamper the city’s ability to provide services in the future, Butler said.

But Ramsey said using reserves is necessary if the facility is to be built without delays.

“If you place public safety at a very high priority, then you have to back that up,” Councilman Sheldon S. Baker said of the proposed project.

Like Mayor Larry Zarian and Councilwoman Eileen Givens, Baker said he is prepared to consider all options presented by Ramsey, including that of going into debt.

Bremberg and Weaver said they prefer asking taxpayers to vote on a municipal bond measure. Such a proposal would require a two-thirds vote.

Zarian, however, said that if the bond issue failed at the polls, the whole project might be doomed.

“I don’t have a problem going to the voters but my feeling is that if the bond doesn’t pass, then we can’t build a police station,” said Zarian.

Avoiding a vote is a “cop-out, a way to get around the public,” Weaver said.

“If you can’t sell it to the public, then that’s your problem,” he said. “It’s like someone saying, ‘Well, it takes a lot of time and effort to sell it and I don’t think I can do it, so I’ll take the easy way and bypass the public, because I know I’m right.’ ”

Bremberg has also questioned the cost of the facility.

“They don’t need . . . a palace,” she said. “A $48-million project is a tad expensive and I never knew a building that caught a criminal.”

Bremberg has rejected not only the borrowing plan, but the transfer of reserves as well. She was critical of the ongoing practice of transfers in her successful campaign.

“I would suggest [borrowing proponents] remember the election and why two incumbents were thrown out and why [Baker] barely got reelected,” Bremberg said.

Zarian, serving his fourth consecutive term as a councilman, conceded, “I came out of my shoes . . . when I realized that we were transferring the amount of dollars we did . . . the fact is you have to run your government.”

The original force behind the transfers, and the city’s driving engine of municipal finance, is Ramsey, Bremberg said. “He conned us while I was still on the council into transferring money from . . . [reserves] on a one-time basis.”

But the practice has continued since. Though Bremberg approved the first transfer, she voted against the practice in subsequent budget negotiations, she said.

“I believe these transfers are appropriate,” Ramsey said, “because the citizens of this city expect and deserve basic levels of service and we’re here to provide them.”