Politicking Intensifies Over Site of New Jail

Last Monday, the day before the election, Anaheim Mayor Donald R. Roth was in the spotlight at a John Wayne Airport press conference, telling of his plans to fly to Sacramento to crusade against a planned new county jail in his city.

But moments before the flight was to leave, Roth was paged over the airport intercom and told that the Assembly committee hearing, where the jail battle was to be waged, had been postponed.

Roth canceled his trip. After the election, in which he won a chance at a runoff for a seat on the Orange County Board of Supervisors, the mayor never rescheduled the trip, although the jail issue went to the committee two days later.

The events underscored the intensifying political controversy over the proposed new jail, county officials say. As supervisors target a site near Anaheim Stadium for the 1,500-bed jail, and county legislators try to stop them, the battle has prompted bitter accusations from backers and foes of the site.

No Consensus

But county officials, facing a federal judge’s ultimatum to do something quickly to ease overcrowding at the men’s main jail in Santa Ana, have no consensus what their next step might be if a move engineered by Assembly Richard Robinson (D-Garden Grove) succeeds.

On Thursday, the Assembly Public Safety Committee unanimously approved Robinson’s amendment that prohibits the expenditure of state money on any new adult jail within two miles of Anaheim Stadium and three miles of Disneyland.

The amendment was tacked onto a bill allocating money to counties from the $495-million bond issue approved by California voters Tuesday. If the bill is passed and signed by Gov. George Deukmejian, Orange County supervisors will have two choices: abandon the site at Katella Avenue and Douglass Road in Anaheim or pay the $138 million for a new jail with county money and whatever federal grants they can muster.

‘No Plan B’

“Plan A is for those amendments to fail,” said one county official who asked not to be identified. “There really is no Plan B.”

In a 4-1 vote, with only Supervisor Ralph B. Clark dissenting, the board ended a week of intense politicking March 18 and selected the site, across the Orange Freeway from the stadium, over three other locations--two in Santa Ana, one other in Anaheim.

The choice immediately brought protests from Anaheim residents, city officials, the California Angels, the Los Angeles Rams and Disneyland.

Although supervisors insist they were always ready to discuss things with those critics, those protests were largely ignored until Robinson, with the backing of Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim), put the restrictions in the bond allocation bill last week.

“I am disappointed and annoyed at our legislators,” said Supervisor Harriett Wieder. “I’m really disappointed at Seymour because he is usually a statesman. . . . You expect that kind of thing from Robinson.”

Both Robinson and Seymour say they regret having to interfere in a local land-use squabble. But they say it was the board that acted irresponsibly. Its hasty decision in selecting the Anaheim site, the legislators say, was an obvious attempt to avoid community input and to take advantage of the fact that Clark did not seek reelection.

“That is so totally false,” said Supervisor Bruce Nestande, the Republican nominee for secretary of state. “. . . we would never do a thing like that.”

Supervisors say that Robinson, who is running for Congress in the fall, was obviously using the jail issue to score points with voters he wants to represent.

“He thinks he is Napoleon,” Wieder said. “Maybe he’ll go to Washington and we’ll have less to do with him.”

Motives Were Pure

Both sides in the intensifying controversy say their motives were pure. And both the critics, who accuse supervisors of hurrying the decision to push the new jail on the community, and the supervisors, who say the jail’s critics are raising a phony issue for political reasons, say they always have been willing to discuss things.

Supervisors say they are trying to meet informal deadlines imposed by U.S. District Judge William P. Gray, who held county officials in contempt of court last year for their failure to live up to his 1978 order to improve jail conditions in Orange County.

Ed Duran, the county’s deputy counsel whose job is to convince the judge that supervisors are doing their best, said Gray expects to see preliminary plans for a new “medium-sized jail” by August; an expansion of existing county jails by at least 300 beds by the end of the year, and rapid progress toward construction of a new regional jail for 6,000.

Bud Smull, an Anaheim developer heading the new Jail Action Coalition formed to fight the jail near the stadium, said it is foolish and expensive for supervisors to even consider a jail site that cannot eventually be expanded into the 6,000-bed facility Gray eventually will demand.

Official Challenge

The coalition filed an official challenge Friday to supervisors’ preliminary plans to conduct an environmental impact report that examines the site near Anaheim Stadium as the “primary site” and three others as less-desirable alternatives. The coalition’s challenge lists 10 other sites that it says are better.

The board majority insists there was nothing political in the way it narrowed its choices to four, then chose the Anaheim site. But sources close to the board say Supervisor Roger R. Stanton always had the primary objective of eliminating a site next to the Santa Ana Civic Center, which is in his district.

Stanton made the motion establishing the criteria for a jail site, which were: county-owned land, at least seven acres in size, accessible to major streets and freeways, and with a structure already on it.

The size criteria eliminated the 2.8-acre Civic Center site. And school officials eliminated another Santa Ana site by expressing an interest in it for a new school, the sources said.

No Apology

Stanton said he did, and still does, oppose the idea of a jail at the Civic Center or any other urban site, “and I certainly don’t apologize for representing my constituents.”

But he said it was Clark, not he, who insisted that the board select a site quickly--and one where jail construction could move ahead rapidly.

And it was county engineers, he said, who first proposed that a minimum of seven acres was necessary. “That was not Stanton. That was just the facts,” he said.

Supervisors say the Anaheim site was clearly the best choice when they looked objectively at the four remaining sites in terms of the number of schoolchildren, schools, old people and homes that were nearby.

‘A Total Farce’

Seymour said, however, said the whole selection process was “a total farce.”

Meanwhile, Duran said supervisors may be forced to look again at one of those eliminated sites for a new jail if the bond allocation bill, with Robinson’s amendment, is approved and signed.

Duran said Gray will be well aware of the supervisors’ problem, and is “a realistic type of judge” who “doesn’t exist in . . . an ivory tower.”