Jail Plan’s Foes Start Drive to Restrict New Lockups to Santa Ana

Opponents of a proposed jail in Orange County’s eastern canyons announced plans Friday for a ballot measure to keep the lockup out of their neighborhood and force all new jails to be built in Santa Ana, the county seat.

Assemblyman John R. Lewis (R-Orange) said the Board of Supervisors “chose politics over good public policy” in voting, 3 to 2, on July 15 to build the $600-million jail in Gypsum and Coal canyons, east of Anaheim Hills and across the Riverside Freeway (California 91) from Yorba Linda.

“It just makes no sense at all to put the jail in that part of the county,” said Lewis, who spoke at a press conference outside the main county jail in Santa Ana to announce the drive for an initiative aimed at next June’s ballot. Lewis’ district includes the two canyons.

But Lori Howard-Griffin, an aide to the Santa Ana City Council who attended the press conference, disagreed.

Initiative Inappropriate

Howard-Griffin said Santa Ana not only wanted the bad parts of the county but also the good. The initiative, she said, is appropriate only “if we move the beaches and harbors to Santa Ana, and the airport as well.”

In a separate development concerning another jail, a report released Friday by the county contended that no obvious long-term adverse environmental impacts would result from expanding Theo Lacy branch jail in Orange from 721 inmates to more than 1,700 by constructing four new buildings. The city opposes the expansion.

The initiative is the latest problem to confront the supervisors in their effort to end overcrowding in the main men’s jail in downtown Santa Ana.

Two years ago, a federal judge found the supervisors in contempt for not improving conditions at the jail. Since then, existing jails have been expanded and a new one built in Santa Ana. Also, the Gypsum-Coal canyons site and another location in Anaheim have been picked for new lockups.

But Anaheim is suing the county, Orange is threatening to sue over the Lacy expansion and the initiative could spell the death of the canyons jail.

Aim for Next June’s Ballot

Lewis, former Westminster Mayor Kathy Buchoz and other opponents of the Gypsum-Coal canyons site said their group would try to put the initiative on next June’s ballot.

Backers must wait 21 days to get comments on the proposed initiative and then have 120 days to gather the 66,000 signatures of registered Orange County voters needed to put the matter to the voters.

Organizers said they will build a coalition of homeowners, business leaders and elected officials from across the county in a grass-roots effort for the initiative.

If successful, the ballot measure would effectively take the question of jail sites out of the hands of the supervisors and limit them simply to deciding where in Santa Ana to put new jails and, possibly, how to expand Lacy and a branch jail near El Toro.

Lewis said “one of the key issues” against the canyons site is the impact on the already-congested Riverside Freeway of an estimated 9,000 more trips per day by vehicles carrying inmates and their visitors to and from the jail.

Issue Ineffective in Past

The transportation issue is one that was used without effect on the supervisors before their vote. Also ignored in the past has been the argument that since Santa Ana, as the county seat, benefits from the county offices and courts within its borders, it should house the county’s jails.

The Gypsum-Coal canyons jail would house 2,500 inmates in its first phase, scheduled to be completed in 1992, and up to 6,000 inmates when all phases have been built, which is scheduled for 2005.

However, if the initiative passes, the county would be barred from breaking ground at the canyons site. Site preparation is scheduled to start there in July of 1988, a month after the initiative would be on the ballot if the organizers obtain the necessary 66,000 signatures.

Even if the initiative fails, the county still has to come up with money for the new facility. A bond issue that would raise property taxes is scheduled for the ballot for November, 1988, and must get a two-thirds vote to pass.

Meanwhile, the county’s environmental impact report on expanding the Lacy jail in Orange found that the only unavoidable adverse effect of more than doubling the number of inmates there was “a potential for the increase in criminal activity in the vicinity of the facility.”

Crime Increase Disputed

But it said there was no “direct evidence” that there would be an increase in crime despite the “community perception” that releasing more inmates at the end of their sentences and having more visitors to men and women behind bars will mean more crime.

“No matter what measures are taken and how effective they are, it may not be possible to fully eliminate the potential for increased crime nor alleviate public fears over releases, visitor activity and the potential for prisoner escapes,” the report said.

The county plans to build two dormitory-style buildings and two buildings with cell blocks. It also plans to house maximum-security inmates at the site for the first time, but only maximum-security women inmates.

Up to 300 women would be housed at Lacy, with women inmates at the Santa Ana jail transferred to the new building, freeing maximum-security cells in Santa Ana for male prisoners.

The report says it is up to the sheriff to decide which men awaiting trial or serving sentences of one year or less would be housed at Lacy, but mentioned those convicted of drunk driving, property thefts and drug-related offenses as possible cases.

Cost Put at $53 Million

The estimated cost of the expansion is $53 million. The supervisors are scheduled next Tuesday to approve an application for $18 million in bond money for the project. The report did not say how the county would pay the remaining $35 million.

Carol Meadows, secretary to the mayor and city manager in Orange, said city officials had not had an opportunity to review the final report and could not comment on it.

The Lacy facility is part of the county’s Manchester Complex, across The City Drive from The City shopping center. Nearby are the UCI Medical Center, juvenile court, Probation Department headquarters and the Orangewood home for abused and neglected children.

The environmental report contends that the aesthetics of Lacy will actually improve, because landscaping and a new facade will hide the razor wire and chain-link fence now visible from the street.

It also contends that the expansion, together with commercial development now occurring nearby, “will have an overall beneficial economic impact” on the area.