State Official Backs L.A. Site : Saugus Residents Urged to Fight Prison

A state prison official Tuesday night encouraged Saugus-area residents to pressure legislators to reject Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley’s proposal that a state prison be built there.

Judith McGillivray, chief of government and community relations for the Department of Corrections, urged more than 1,000 people at Saugus High School to push for legislation that would locate the new prison in an industrial area of downtown Los Angeles.

“The department looked at Saugus and rejected it” because it is a developed residential area, she said.

But Bradley could still “persuade the Legislature this is the appropriate site,” she said after her talk at a forum organized by Assemblywoman Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) and a group fighting the mayor’s proposal.

Bradley on Oct. 31 proposed selling a 520-acre, city-owned tract in Saugus to the state for a 1,700-bed prison. A measure passed by the Legislature in 1982 requires that the state build a prison somewhere in Los Angeles County.

Saugus-area residents objected both to the prison proposal and the way Bradley handled the announcement.

“He flew into our valley without giving any notice, said Saugus was a great site, and flew out,” said Robin Geissler, 30, who founded a group called Citizens for Fair Prison Sites soon after Bradley’s announcement. She said her group has collected 5,000 signatures on petitions opposing the prison proposal.

“If the state is forced to build in Saugus, it will be the first time that a state prison has gone into an existing residential neighborhood,” said Jim Scott, 30, another leader of the group.

Residents said the area lacks the road, hospital and sewage infrastructure to support a prison.

“For a small community, we are carrying our fair share of prisons,” Geissler said.

“There are a lot of families raising kids out here,” said Monika Leisring, 15, a Saugus High School 10th-grader. “Residents panic when people break out of there,” Leisring said, referring to past escapes from nearby detention centers.