Prompted by constituent complaints, City Councilman Tony Cardenas has demanded that Los Angeles police craft a new plan to quash pockets of crime in his northeast San Fernando Valley district.
Cardenas' order, however, has mystified LAPD brass.
It turns out that crime throughout Cardenas' district - which includes Van Nuys and Sun Valley - and across the Valley has dropped consistently in recent years. The crime rate in Van Nuys, for example, has been slashed in half in just the last five years.
"You're not going to hear me say the world is perfect. It's not," said Deputy Chief Kirk Albanese, head of the Los Angeles Police Department's Valley Bureau.
"But it's a whole lot better than it was five years ago - and certainly better than it was 10 years ago."
In fact, the Valley is on track to close out the year with a 6 percent decrease in overall crime compared with last year, Albanese said.
Still, some community and business activists paint a more disturbing picture, saying the statistics do not reflect what they're seeing in the streets.
Their complaints led Cardenas in November to call on the LAPD to issue a report on crime and develop Public Safety Improvement Plans in five specific sections of his district: downtown Van Nuys, the Van Nuys Airport Industrial Core, Sepulveda Corridor, San Fernando Road and the Panorama City business district.
Community members cite prostitution, vandalism, robberies, assaults, burglary and thefts from vehicles and narcotics as ongoing problems.
Cardenas argues that those remain serious concerns, even if the overall statistics reflect a positive trend.
"While portions of the area are undergoing a resurgence and revitalization, pockets of criminal activity threaten to derail the community's overall progress and welfare," Cardenas stated in his council motions.
The plans seek to identify gaps in policies or services and address crime and quality-of-life issues. The goal is to maximize police and community resources and launch conversations among city officials, law enforcement and the community.
The report would also help address discrepancies between what police are reporting and what the community is seeing, Cardenas said.
"The main impetus is for us to have a better communication dialogue when it comes to crime and see what's being done about it," Cardenas said in an interview. "So we can tell (constituents) honestly and so they can tell us they're not noticing any difference."
A budget-strapped city has kept the police force just below the 10,000 mark. The department is also keeping overtime down, shifting sworn officers to civilian duties, and has promoted early retirements and furlough time, effectively reducing the size of the force by what the police union estimates is the equivalent of at least 800 officers.
That may be reflected in a September survey of 300 residents who live near shopping hubs, conducted by the Panorama City Neighborhood Council, that found most residents don't feel safe and don't see much of a police presence.
"It's very minimal," said José Sandoval, public safety chairman of the PCNC. "We've seen the LAPD presence on bikes. Just recently, we don't see anybody."
Despite those difficulties, police have a 5.9-minute emergency response time in the Valley, well under the LAPD's deployment plan, which calls for a 7-minute response time.
"We don't have cops in a closet that we can just pull out and send somewhere," Albanese said. "We're strapped, but we get it done by the thinnest of margins sometimes."
Violent crime in Van Nuys this year is down 28 percent when compared [to data from] 2008. Property crimes are down 15 percent. Even in LAPD's Mission Division, which oversees Panorama City, one of the Valley's more troubled areas, violence is down 14 percent from 2008 and property crimes are down 16 percent.
Still, in the notorious Sepulveda Corridor, neighbors see prostitutes on the street daily and find used condoms on the sidewalks, said Don Schultz, public safety chairman of the Van Nuys Neighborhood Council.
The problem has been difficult to dislodge as prostitutes tend to migrate to the Valley to escape injunctions in other parts of L.A. and often change hours to avoid vice units.
But prostitution arrests - the only statistical indicator police have of how prevalent the activity is - are down 8 percent from 2009.
While Schultz commended the work of vice units, he acknowledged that police work alone isn't enough.
"We could never have enough cops to take care of the problem," Schultz said. "We've got enough to make a dent. We've got to change the laws. It's that simple."
But none of the issues identified in Cardenas' motions are new, said one critic of the effort.
"He's not addressing something new, he's not addressing something old, he's addressing this at a time of elections," said Edwin Ramirez, a Pacoima community activist.
Cardenas, who has been in office since 2003, is up for re-election next year.
Prostitution had taken root along San Fernando Road years ago, and the narcotics problem is compounded by motels housing ex-convicts and sex offenders, Ramirez said. Businesses have closed because of break-ins and strict environmental regulations, he said.
"I respect the intent, I respect the work," Ramirez said. "Now with elections coming up, it's a good time to bring it up."
LAPD has another two months to report on the motions and what, if anything, it is doing to address the problems reported by community members. But where they go from there is open to discussion, Albanese said.
"We are paying attention to the motions and we intend to respond to them," Albanese said. "But we clearly recognize that we have a responsibility for the entire San Fernando Valley in addition to the areas identified in the motions."
"At the end of the day, we are in the business of reducing the number of victims," Albanese added. "And we're doing a hell of a job at it, year after year."
