Protest at East L.A. Hearing : Neighbors Nix Prison, Demand Schools, Jobs

Opposition to placing a state prison near downtown has grown into an angry demand by 500 East Los Angeles residents to give them what they really need--schools for their children and work for their unemployed.

Led by Assemblywoman Gloria Molina (D-Los Angeles) and City Councilman Richard Alatorre, dozens of speakers at a raucous public hearing Wednesday night said that the last thing the struggling neighborhoods in East Los Angeles need is a prison.

Officials of the state Department of Corrections had attempted to explain job opportunities that would be created by the medium-security prison, proposed at 12th Street and Santa Fe Avenue in an industrial zone a few blocks from residential Boyle Heights. But they were shouted down by cries of, “Those are jobs on the backs of the Hispanic people!” and “Good education will keep our children out of prison!”

Carmine Botho, president of the Boyle Heights Chamber of Commerce, joined several business leaders in a call for better schools and new industrial developments.

“For our children, we want something they can follow, something they can be proud of--not a prison,” Botho said.

Different Site Pushed

Molina is sponsoring a bill to locate the 1,700-man prison next to Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho near Castaic, a site rejected by the state because it is crisscrossed by earthquake faults and is on a flood plain. Los Angeles City Councilman Gilbert Lindsay said he plans to ask the council today to back Molina’s bill.

The intense local opposition is the most recent setback to the state’s increasingly thorny four-year search for a site in Los Angeles County, which does not have a state prison.

Under state law, until a site is approved in the county, two prisons under construction in San Diego and Stockton, which had been expected to open this year, will not be allowed to do so. Prison officials say that California’s prison population has doubled, to more than 50,000 inmates, since 1980, caused in part by stiffer sentencing laws.

Gov. George Deukmejian favors the site near Boyle Heights because the cost of transporting prisoners from downtown courts and jails would be substantially less than if the prison were located in a rural area. In addition, relatives of prisoners would have shorter distances to travel to visit inmates.

Mayor Tom Bradley, who is challenging Deukmejian for governor, has suggested a third site in distant Santa Clarita Valley, northeast of the San Fernando Valley.

Property Is Available

Unlike other urban sites proposed by the state in recent years, the 23-acre parcel, the former home of Crown Coach Co., is available for sale.

On May 12, a bill approved by the state Senate to allow the state to purchase the Crown Coach site will be heard by the Assembly Public Safety Committee. Molina said she hopes to block the bill in committee. Her bill will be heard the same day.

Meanwhile, prison officials say they hope that the political maneuvering will come to an end.

Since late December, the number of state inmates has jumped from 50,000 to 53,000, said Rod Blonien, undersecretary of the state Youth and Adult Corrections Agency.

“At Chino, we have 200 people double-bunked in the gymnasium, the food storage rooms are used for sleeping, and we’ve taken out TVs to put in bunks,” Blonien said. “It’s a bad situation.”