Santa Clarita Valley Opens Fight Against Prison Plans

Santa Clarita Valley residents are mounting a campaign to oppose conversion of a county camp for juvenile offenders near Saugus into Southern California’s first privately run prison.

“I’m tired of hearing people say we have enough prisons up here--I say we’ve got too many,” said Larry Rankin, a retired county firefighter who is leading the protest against the creation of a prison for adult parole violators.

“Just because we’re a rural area, they think they can just dump anything here,” he said.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has scheduled a hearing on the matter Thursday morning. Protest leaders say they expect more than 100 residents who live near the site in upper Bouquet Canyon north of Saugus to attend to voice their opposition.

Utah Firm Engaged

The supervisors scheduled the hearing after Rankin appealed a decision by the Regional Planning Commission Jan. 13 that granted a private firm, Management Training Corp. of Ogden, Utah, a conditional-use permit to operate the facility as a prison for adult parole violators.

Rankin’s appeal was accompanied by a petition bearing the signatures of 762 opponents of the change. Rankin, who lives near the juvenile camp, said opponents now have collected more than 1,000 signatures.

Most of those fighting the plan live in rural areas of Saugus, Bouquet Canyon and the communities of Green Valley and Leona Valley, he said.

“We moved up here to get away from crime,” Rankin said. “It’s just an insult. It’s so beautiful here, and they are proposing to violate it by putting up a chain-link fence with barbed wire on it.”

Resident Eileen Heonshell said opponents are also angry because the conversion will more than double the number of offenders at the camp--from 48 boys to 100 adult men.

Both Rankin and Heonshell said the county did not adequately inform residents about the proposed conversion before the Planning Commission’s Jan. 13 meeting.

Both county and state officials said, however, that several community meetings were held to explain the proposal to residents. Dave Vannatta, an aide to Supervisor Mike Antonovich, said he arranged seven or eight neighborhood meetings to discuss the conversion. At one meeting attended by about 50 people, the majority voted to support the project, Vannatta said.

Under the conditional-use permit approved by the Planning Commission, the county will take the juvenile offenders to other juvenile institutions and lease the property to the state Department of Corrections. The state, in turn, will contract with Management Training to renovate the existing buildings, then open the adult camp.

Provisions of the Permit

Vannatta said the firm will be required to put a 10-foot high fence around the 15-acre site and work with a community advisory board in operating the facility. The permit limits the facility to 100 inmates, he said, and does not allow new buildings to be constructed on the property. He said the permit is limited to four years.

“People get the idea that this is the forerunner to a big prison,” said Dean Dalby, a Management Training representative.

“It’s not a prison as such and will never be that,” he said, because of the number and type of inmates. “This facility will house 100 inmates, period.”

He said his firm has been in the private prison business for 20 years and operates 11 institutions housing 6,000 juveniles and adults throughout the country.

“Our intent is to house 100 extremely low-risk parolees at Artisan Oaks,” said Rufus Morris of the state Department of Corrections. “They will be the kind of inmates who do not warrant adjudication through the courts. They will be returned to custody by their parole officers for minor violations for a maximum of six months.”

State Supervision

Although a private firm will run the facility, Morris said the state will closely supervise its operation. For example, he said, the state will screen the cases of all parole violators before they are sent to the facility.

“We will exclude any case that has any background of violence, arson or any kind of sexual misconduct,” he said. “We will also exclude parolees awaiting trial or who have criminal charges pending. We will exclude any participants who have any gang affiliation.”

“We will not permit any participants to roam around the community. A parolee will never be taken to the gate and released,” but will be bused out of the area before being set free, he said.

It will be the first privately run facility for adult parole violators in Southern California, he said, and may be the forerunner of several similar facilities in Los Angeles and elsewhere in the state for minor offenders who otherwise would be put back in the crowded state prison system.

The private contract will save taxpayers money, Morris said. He said it costs more than $20,000 a year to house an inmate in a state prison but only $12,775 a year in a privately run facility.

Morris said the state is willing to amend the conditional-use permit in a number of ways to satisfy residents “if the community requests it.”

He said inmates could provide free labor for graffiti removal and build equestrian trails or other recreational facilities. Because the inmates will be low-risk, Morris said, they will also be available to fight fires that may occur in the area. They would be under guard when outside the institution, he said.

‘Let’s Work Together’

“We want to be a good neighbor,” he said. “We want to encourage residents to participate in the development process. We’re open to suggestions. What we’re saying is, ‘Let’s talk about it; let’s work together.’ ”

Despite assurances about the new facility’s safety, Rankin, Heonshell and others said they believe the county and state are painting a false picture of the new facility.

“They want to move 48 boys out and give us 100 felons,” Heonshell said. “It’s outrageous for them to think they can just double the number of people in that facility without letting the community know about it. We’re ready to go to court and fight this thing if we have to.”

She said plans are under way to take two or three busloads of residents to Thursday’s protest hearing.

Morris said many residents possibly believe that if they defeat the conversion proposal, they will be getting rid of one correctional facility in the area.

“This is not the case,” he said.

The juvenile facility will remain if the conversion does not occur, Morris said.