Blythe Residents Look Forward to Prospect of Prison

‘I came to this furnace because the former owners said there was going to be a prison built here and we would have lots of business.’ --Motel operator Carmen Vasquez

Staring longingly at the swimming pool outside, Carmen Vasquez mopped the back of her neck with a handkerchief in the sweltering office of the Sea Shell Motel she bought here a year ago for $500,000.

“I came to this furnace because the former owners said there was going to be a prison built here and we would have lots of business,” said Vasquez, 38, who moved here from San Diego, where she operates another motel along the Mexican border. “Right now, we’re losing money.”

Then she crossed her fingers and added, “We’re still waiting for that prison.”

Relief for Vasquez and other struggling business owners in this remote, torrid desert community of 14,000 people could come if a long-sought state prison wins final approval from the state Public Works Board next fall, California Corrections Department officials said.

Barring unforeseen difficulties, construction would begin within months on the 3,200-inmate, medium-security prison, which is expected to bring 700 steady jobs and an estimated annual payroll of $13 million to Blythe, said Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside), chairman of the joint legislative committee on prison construction and operations. The first prisoners would arrive in 1988.

The proposed $125-million facility would sit 17 miles west of Blythe at Wiley’s Well, a desolate plot of desert studded with mesquite and greasewood that is framed in the distance by the barren Little Chuckawalla Mountains on the south and the Mule Mountains on the east.

“Escapees would probably die in the desert before they reached town,” said Cindy Garcia, 23, a desk clerk at Comfort Inn and strong proponent of the prison.

Optimistic that the prison proposal will pass its final hurdles, Blythe Mayor William Martindale said a “renaissance” is at hand for what has existed for years as a traveler’s gas and food stop straddling the Colorado River about 200 miles east of Los Angeles.

“We are already seeing some real estate moving and new development being discussed,” Martindale said. “With the prison, we’ll need more and better restaurants, shopping facilities, housing and medical care.”

That could mean a better way of life for the town, which is about 45% Latino and has an average household income of about $16,000 a year, according Terry Matz, Blythe city manager, a little more than half the average household income of $31,838 in Riverside County.

The Blythe prison is one of 10 new facilities proposed by the state Corrections Department for construction by 1991. Its approval would have no effect on bitterly contested plans for a 1,700-bed prison in downtown Los Angeles.

There has been near-unanimous support for the desert prison among Blythe merchants and elected officials, some of whom stunned legislators last February by traveling to Sacramento and demonstrating in favor of it on the steps of the Capitol.

“One of the things we look for in siting a new prison is community support,” said Bob Gore, a spokesman for the state Corrections Department. “It helps speed the process along.”

But not everyone in the area wants the prison, and the prospect of swift and dramatic change here has created strong friction between businessmen and some farmers.

On one side are the mostly “mom-and-pop” business owners and realtors in town eager for the commerce associated with hundreds of prison employees and their families. On the other are farmers who believe that the town will lose its rural character in favor of a “prison subculture.”

Opposition to Prison

Although much of the opposition has diminished in recent months, some farmers say their continuing opposition to the prison has caused them to lose friends in town.

“This pro-prison, anti-prison controversy has evolved into a pro-farmer, anti-farmer controversy,” said Bart Fisher, spokesman for the “Stop the Prison Committee” and owner of Fisher Farms, one of the largest growers in the area with 9,000 acres. “The issue has driven a wedge into town and created wounds that won’t heal soon.”

Opponents such as Fisher believe that the prison will attract an undesirable element to Blythe, raise the crime rate, scare away winter visitors and destroy the rural, small-town atmosphere.

“What person in their right mind wants a prison in their backyard?” asked Fisher, while supervising a tomato harvest. “Besides that, it is crazy to put a prison in the middle of the desert where it is cold in the winter and hotter than hell in the summer. Can you imagine what the utility bills will be?”

‘Fight Isn’t Over’

Asserting that some merchants have become “starry-eyed with dollar signs,” Fisher shook his head and vowed, “the fight isn’t over yet.”

A last-ditch effort may come in September when an Environmental Assessment Study is to be presented at a local public hearing. Opponent Ron Baker, who owns a small farm 10 miles outside of town, said prison adversaries plan to examine it closely in hopes of finding a “chink in the armor.”

But even Fisher acknowledged that Blythe today “looks like ruin.”

There is no skating rink, movie theater or miniature golf course here. Young people congregate instead at supermarket parking lots.

Nor are there many available jobs outside of the fast-food stands, gas stations and motels along “hamburger row”--a nickname for Lovekin Boulevard, the exit from Interstate 10--or the irrigated fields of cotton, lettuce, melons, tomatoes, corn and alfalfa surrounding the city.

‘I’d Leave Tomorrow’

There are, however, lots of empty buildings, “for sale” signs and people who would like to move.

“I’d leave tomorrow if the sheriff wouldn’t bring me back because of the debts I owe,” said appliance store owner Bud Phipps, 65, who plans to quit business after years of “barely getting by.”

But even some prison advocates are worried that stores such as Phipps’ could get clobbered by potential new competition the prison would bring to town.

“Progress is sometimes painful and some of the small stores around here will adapt or die,” said print shop owner and former mayor Ernest Weeks. “I wonder if some of the pro-prison people will be ready for it.”

“I like competition,” said Julian Hernandez, 61, sitting in the cocktail lounge of his Don Julian’s Mexican Restaurant as a rock band played hard for the usual nightly crowd of locals.

“I also think the prison will double my business,” he said. “The way I see it, the corrections officers will want to eat Mexican food once in a while, drink a margarita or two.”