Brown Says He Now Favors Downtown L.A. Site for Prison

Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) reversed himself Tuesday, saying that he now favors a downtown Los Angeles prison site sought by Gov. George Deukmejian because the governor is “right on this issue” and not because of politics.

Brown, who blocked Assembly approval of the site last year, also indicated that he is not sorry for his change of heart--even though it goes against the wishes of Mayor Tom Bradley, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, and Assemblywoman Gloria Molina (D-Los Angeles), whose district includes the site.

“I asked my staff people to do their normal evaluations and they came back and reported the site in downtown Los Angeles makes the most sense logically,” said Brown, whose political relations with Bradley long have been frosty. “The Administration happens to be right on this issue.”

He said, “I made the decision I made based upon the information supplied to me, period. Mine is not a political decision. Mine is a rational decision arrived at in the best interests of the people of the State of California for security purposes.

“It may not be in the best interests of Gloria Molina or her politics or in the best interests of Tom Bradley or his politics. But I would like to have the headstone say more often than not the decision I made was substance and principle rather than political.”

Both Bradley and Molina want the prison built near the Magic Mountain amusement park instead of in the light industrial area near downtown favored by the governor, and now, Brown.

Brown also said that, during a trip to Europe, he learned that foreign prisons are located in metropolitan areas served by public transit instead of remote areas as they are in California.

“I became convinced that it would be better that prisons should be built where families and visitors can have access to them,” Brown said. “We really ought to rethink where we locate prison sites.”

The proposed prison would be on a 30-acre site bounded by 15th Street on the south, Santa Fe Avenue on the west, Santa Fe railroad tracks on the east and roughly bounded by 12th Street on the north. The site is about two miles east of the Civic Center.