City’s Tract Formerly Housed Alcoholics

In August, 1951, the City of Los Angeles, looking for land on which it could build a rehabilitation center for alcoholics, paid the Bonelli Cattle Co. $10 and received the deed to a 520-acre tract in the unincorporated Saugus area of Los Angeles County.

The center, which from 1954 to 1969 served as a facility for men convicted of public drunkenness, is best known as the “Old Saugus Drunk Farm,” although it has more recently been a vocational training center and a sports camp for underprivileged children. Now part of it is leased to farmers and the rest is largely unused.

But the Saugus facility, which Thursday was proposed by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley as the site for a state prison, is best known among local elected officials for as a political Ping-Pong ball that has bounced back and forth between the city, which owns the land, and the county, whose Board of Supervisors has jurisdiction over zoning and land use.

County Covets Tract

For more than a decade, the county has been trying unsuccessfully to acquire the facility. Both city and county staff members have drawn up proposals that have failed to be adopted, including long-term leases, land swaps and outright sale.

In 1982, negotiations were revived by Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who wanted to use the facility as a probation camp or for senior-citizen housing.

Antonovich proposed a swap of all or part of the county’s 4.6 acres at El Pueblo State Historic Park in downtown Los Angeles for the Saugus land. The proposal was voted down by the City Council.

Over the years, the city has maintained it wants to obtain full market value for the property, which was appraised in 1974, and again in 1983, at $7 million. It has put the property up for sale on the open market but received little response because the county controls the zoning, according to Bill Mercer, an administrative analyst for the city administrator’s office.

According to the county’s master plan adopted in 1977, the Saugus land is slated for public-facilities zoning, which would allow governmental and institutional uses such as prisons, Mercer said. The land is now zoned for agricultural use and is leased on 90-day notice to a farmer who grows onions and other vegetables.

The latest round of negotiations, initiated in 1984 at the request of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and the Los Angeles City Council, directed the staffs of both agencies to come up with a workable solution to sell or develop the land, Mercer said.

Mayor Bradley’s announcement Thursday morning that he is proposing the former rehabilitation center as a prison site throws a wrench in other plans for the site that had been close to being consummated, according to city and county staff members.

“Between staffs, we have basically worked up an agreement which would have called for the county acting as lead agency . . . to develop the 520 acres, mainly residential use and a little bit of commercial,” said Victor Grgas, director of development planning for the county.

Grgas said the agreement was to have been presented before the Board of Supervisors and the council in December. It is uncertain what will happen now, city and county staff members said.

The rehabilitation center originally was operated by the Los Angeles Police Department as one of two correctional facilities where men convicted of public drunkenness served their sentences, which police said could run two or three months.

Up to 750 men were housed at center, which has about 25 barracks. On the farm, the men planted, tilled soil and harvested crops while they dried out up in what police officials described as a healthy, outdoor environment.

“For a lot of public inebriates, that was their home, frankly,” said Los Angeles police Cmdr. William Booth, who recalled that Skid Row alcoholics would often ask their favorite beat policemen to take them to the farm.

In 1962, a state law transferred responsibility for the treatment of alcoholics to the county, which began leasing the land and operating the program until 1969, according to Mercer.

The center offered vocational training from 1967 to 1969. That year, the county’s lease expired and the facility became a camp for underprivileged boys, Mercer said. It closed in 1974 when funding ended and has been vacant for 11 years, he said.