Neighbors of Forestry Camp Object to Jail Transfer Plan

“Attention Local Residents,” the cardboard bulletin board sign reads outside the El Cariso roadside country store in Riverside County. “Did you know Los Pinos Camp is going to be an ‘adult’ facility! to house three to four hundred men. WE DO NOT want this to occur. We want to fight this action.”

Propped on the checkout counter beside beef jerky jars inside the shop, a few miles south of Lake Elsinore, another village bulletin states: “Please help us fight Orange County! In two weeks they will begin lodging prisoners from Orange County Jail on this mountain at the Los Pinos Youth facility. Inquire within.”

And behind the counter sits Carol Jillson, owner and manager of the country store, talking on the phone, kibitzing with local customers, ready to take names.

On Saturday, she and several other townsfolk were preparing to wage a village uprising against the big shots.

Petition Campaign

Jillson and the rest of her loosely formed team are gathering signatures for a petition opposing the transfer of an estimated 200 minimum-security adult jail inmates to “our mountain.”

“It’s sort of like they want to dump their trash in our yard,” Jillson said, looking toward the tree-lined winding road on which it takes a traveler at least an hour to reach central Orange County. “We’re so far out here, we don’t really belong to anyone. That’s our problem,” she said.

An Orange County panel recommended Friday that 200 adult jail inmates be housed in the gymnasium at the Los Pinos Forestry Camp to relieve extreme overcrowding at the Orange County Jail in Santa Ana.

The six-member panel--appointed by the Orange County Board of Supervisors two months ago after a federal judge ordered a reduction in the jail’s population--made the recommendation in a report Friday. The report states that the main jail in Santa Ana will be unable to meet a federal judge’s May 17 deadline to reduce overcrowding.

The panel said that about 400 more beds must be found to reduce the jail population, as ordered March 18 by U.S. District Judge William P. Gray in Los Angeles. Gray found the county in contempt of court for violating his 1978 order to improve conditions at the jail, and fined the county $50,000. He stayed imposition for 60 days of an additional fine of $10 per day for each inmate forced to sleep on the floor for more than one night.

Months of Preparations

It would take at least 4 1/2 months to get the Los Pinos facility ready for the 200 inmates if complete environmental reports are needed, the panel’s report says. Los Pinos, which is on federal land and run by the Orange County Probation Department, houses about 80 juveniles who are enrolled in high school and vocational training.

The panel emphasizes in its report that use of the Los Pinos camp, which would cost more than $600,000 a year, would be temporary and that it would house adult minimum-security inmates. Adults and juveniles would be separated.

The panel is to meet again Monday and could modify its recommendations before the Orange County supervisors consider the matter at their regular meeting Tuesday.

Jillson and her crew certainly hope so.

By early afternoon Saturday, the group had 30 signatures. The village has roughly 75 homes.

“We’ve had people from Orange County say they want to sign our petition, and they don’t even live here!” said Jillson, who, with her husband, Skip, has owned the store 1 1/2 years and lived in El Cariso for a decade. “Most people move here because they want to get away from the city . . . yes, we’re afraid of prisoners!”

She pointed to two newspaper articles from last week, one about various proposals for transferring adult “minimum-risk” jail inmates to other facilities, the other about an inmate who escaped from Orange County’s Theo Lacy minimum security facility and was arrested on suspicion of kidnaping and stabbing a woman.

“This is a minimum-security inmate?” she asked incredulously. “Right . . . I hate to bring up Kevin Cooper , but come on . . . . “ Cooper was an inmate at the California Institution for Men at Chino who escaped and was convicted of first-degree murder in February in the brutal deaths of four people who were hacked and stabbed to death in a Chino Hills home in June, 1983.

Intervention Hoped For

Members of the group have pleaded with Riverside County Supervisors to intervene in their behalf, and the group plans to attend the board meeting Tuesday. Jillson said an aide to Orange County Supervisor Bruce Nestande told them that Los Pinos was “the No. 1 priority because it’s cheaper.”

Jillson said she worked at Los Pinos as a cook and receptionist for four years. The town and the camp have had a wonderful relationship for the 15 years of its existence, she said.

“They do a great job up there, they really do,” Jillson said. “And they don’t have many escapes either.”

She is still close to many who work there. They come into town for supplies and just to yammer, she said.

“The thing I object to,” said El Cariso resident Walter Prill, “is government doesn’t even ask you.”

Los Pinos Forestry Camp is 1 1/8 miles from the Ortega Highway, tucked away in a remote valley and circled by rolling hills. The only fence is a locked metal gate at the driveway entrance to the enclave. From a hilltop dirt road, you can see the barn-like gymnasium, a large baseball diamond and several dwellings hidden mostly by the heavy Live Oak, blooming purple Penstemon Pincushion and chaparral.

Its closest neighbor is a decades-old nudist camp whose 100 members visit mostly on weekends.

Those who supervise the camp for juvenile offenders live in trailers on a nearby ridge, and other employees live a few miles away.

Said Nicolai Billy, who owns El Cariso’s only restaurant, “Like I said, no one wants a jail in their backyard.”