Politics & Government

Refund Sought for 405 Closure Costs to City

Councilman Mitchell Englander calls for reimbursement to city to cover extra safety, traffic deployments during freeway shutdown.

Los Angeles City Councilman Mitchell Englander said Friday he wants the city reimbursed for the millions of dollars it will cost to deploy extra police officers, firefighters and traffic cops across the San Fernando Valley and the Westside during the .

"The massive use of city resources will have an impact on our budget, especially considering the restrictions and limitations on overtime,'' Englander wrote in a motion introduced Friday seeking reimbursement.

“People across the City were outraged about the high costs to taxpayers to manage the impacts of the Michael Jackson funeral, and that only lasted four hours,” Englander, who is chairman of the Public Safety Committee, said in a press release. “The 405 Freeway closure will shut down one of the state’s biggest transportation arteries for three days. The City is doing everything necessary to manage the public safety and traffic impacts, as we must, but there must be reimbursement for the costs related to this closure.”

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A 10-mile stretch of the 405 will be closed for an estimated 53 hours for the demolition of the south side of the Mulholland Bridge. The project is part of a $1-billion project to widen the 405 through the Sepulveda Pass.

Marc Littman, a spokesman for Metro, which is overseeing the project, said the motion was not a surprise.

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"Metro is receiving invoices from a variety of different agencies: LAPD, LAFD, county sheriffs, CHP and others,'' he told City News Service. "Metro is the lead agency and we have been in contact with these other agencies about processing their invoices.''

The expenses "will come out of the project budget,'' he said. "How much is involved we don't know at this point.''

The Los Angeles Fire Department will have 200 on duty during the closure and will deploy an additional 15 fire engines and six ambulances at stations along Mulholland Drive in Encino Hills and Beverly Glen, and on Olympic Boulevard in West Los Angeles, according to LAFD spokesman Erik Scott.

The Police Department is also deploying extra motorcycle officers and keeping all of its helicopters on standby.

The LAPD has not projected the cost of its extra deployments, police Lt. Andrew Neiman said, adding that a cost would be determined after the weekend.

"For almost every event we deploy, pre-planned or spontaneous, we do track our costs,'' Neiman said. "It absolutely makes good fiscal sense for us to seek reimbursement, just like we do [when] we respond to a brush fire.''

City News Service contributed to this report.


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