Vote on Deukmejian Prison Plan Delayed by Broad Resistance

Gov. George Deukmejian’s emergency plan to house an additional 5,050 prisoners by next year ran into a barrage of opposition and unanswered questions Monday in its first test before a legislative committee.

In the face of criticism from interests as divergent as the Sierra Club and the Legislature’s own chief financial adviser, Assembly Public Safety Committee Chairman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego) delayed a vote on the plan, hoping to work out a compromise that would help the Administration solve its critical prison overcrowding problems before the Legislature adjourns Sept. 13.

Stirling, saying he believes the committee is “moving toward a consensus,” scheduled another hearing for Thursday.

But it was clear by the range and depth of the questions that there is much to work out and little time to do it.

The Administration’s plan, announced last week, would spend $77 million and waive the state’s strict environmental review process to clear the way for speedy construction of additional housing at three prisons, convert day rooms and other prison facilities into cellblocks and temporarily house minimum-security inmates at two existing and one abandoned California Conservation Corps camps.

Question on Oversight

This would be in addition to the voter-approved $1.2-billion bond-financed plan--much of which has been delayed--that is to add capacity for 19,000 inmates by 1989.

Although some of the criticism came from community groups that oppose specific projects in their cities, the harshest opposition focused on the Administration’s failure to move more rapidly with its overall prison construction program and its request to waive environmental reviews as a way of getting projects on a “fast track.”

Jeffrey P. Ruch, the committee’s chief consultant, told lawmakers that the Administration’s plan is riddled with drafting errors--one of which would eliminate legislative and administrative oversight of the construction program. He also asserted that the crash construction program would do little to eliminate overcrowding that now has the prison system--with an average inmate population of about 48,000--operating at more than 160% of capacity.

“In the last four years, the Legislature has approved $1.2 billion in financing to create 19,400 new prison cells,” Ruch said. “To date, few of these cells have been built.”

Ruch added that even with the additional emergency construction, the growth in the prison population will quickly outstrip capacity. Moreover, Ruch said, bills to stiffen sentences pending before the Legislature would, if passed, wipe out any gains in prison capacity contained in the Administration’s plan.

Administration officials concede that the plan would not end the acute overcrowding problem. But they contend that without the additional money and environmental waivers, the projects will be hopelessly delayed and overcrowding will worsen.

The request to loosen the state’s environmental review process for much of the emergency construction as well as for all future prison projects came in response to environmental lawsuits that the Deukmejian Administration claims are responsible for delaying much of their construction program.

But Assemblyman Byron Sher (D-Palo Alto), chairman of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee, argued that the Legislature already had provided a streamlined environmental review process for prison projects. The latest request, he said, is “the most dramatic proposal to waive the California Environmental Quality Act that I’ve ever seen.”

Jerry Beavers, speaking for Legislative Analyst William Hamm, said that environmental suits have affected construction only on a few projects and that the Administration has failed to move quickly enough even in cases where no such suits have been filed.

Remarks Challenged

That brought a sharp response from Rodney J. Blonien, undersecretary of the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, who said he was offended by the remarks and challenged the legislative analyst’s office to “put forward their own plan.”

“This is stock criticism,” Blonien said, adding that construction had already begun on 6,000 prison beds authorized under the overall prison construction program. Blonien said that earlier efforts to streamline the environmental review process had done little to head off lawsuits.

“We have a clear emergency on our hands right now,” Blonien said. “That’s why we had to take extraordinary action.”

Assemblyman William Leonard (R-Redlands), the only legislator to testify in support of the governor’s plan, said the criticism presented the Administration with a “clear Catch 22 no-win situation.”

“We should give the Administration all they are asking for and let them be judged on the consequences rather than criticizing and rewriting the plan,” Leonard said.

Environmental Concerns

Earlier in the day, a coalition of opponents, including the Sierra Club, charged at a press conference that the environmental waivers would only result in more delays because environmental problems would not be discovered until it is too late.

Others, including the Friends Committee on Legislation, a Quaker-sponsored group, said the only real solution is early release of nonviolent inmates. Deukmejian supported that solution several years ago but has since backed off in the face of strong opposition from Republicans and Democrats in the Legislature.