Plan to Build 2 Prisons in L.A. County Taking Hold

Gov. George Deukmejian, reluctant until recently to negotiate over his proposal for a state prison on Los Angeles’ Eastside, has embraced major elements of a Democratic compromise bill that calls for the construction of two prisons in Los Angeles County, it was disclosed Tuesday.

Top aides to the Republican governor sent word to Sen. President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) and other key negotiators that he would agree to build a prison in a sparsely populated rural area of the county so long as another is authorized on his preferred site, in a heavily Latino area about two miles southeast of the Los Angeles Civic Center.

Sources close to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has been considering the compromise plan for two weeks, said Roberti and the bill’s author, Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside), are in substantial agreement with the governor on many of the Administration’s demands.

However, sources close to the committee said major disagreements remain over such issues as the ultimate size of both prisons and the timing and scope of necessary environmental studies, long a stumbling block in the dispute.

With Deukmejian in Washington attending the National Governors Conference and no one authorized to negotiate in his absence, Roberti and Presley adjourned a series of closed-door meetings Tuesday and delayed a crucial committee vote on the plan for at least a week.

“There is a continuing effort of refinement and, of necessity, the governor’s office has to be involved in this,” Presley said in announcing the delay.

The guarded public statements by those involved in the talks--coupled with the first firm indication of Deukmejian’s stance on the Democratic compromise--are considered signs of progress in the political stalemate that has gone on for more than two years.

Last year, after overwhelmingly approving Deukmejian’s prison proposal, the Senate reversed itself under pressure from community activists and scuttled the governor’s bill. At that time, some Democrats, including Roberti, accused Deukmejian of playing political favorites by demanding that the prison be built on the overwhelmingly Democratic Eastside.

With pressure mounting, however, Roberti and Presley came up with the idea of a second prison in a rural and largely Republican area in the northern part of the county as a way of softening some of the opposition. Under the plan, the specific location of the second prison would be selected later by the Department of Corrections. But it could not be built until a “scaled down” Eastside prison is finished and occupied.

Deukmejian, in a fairly detailed response, agreed to the outlines of the plan but insisted that the Eastside prison be large enough to accommodate its full complement of 1,700 inmates and that the second, rural prison be even larger.

The major disagreement is over Democrats’ demands that a full environmental impact report be completed before the state moves to buy the Eastside site. Administration officials have said they fear that could tie up the purchase in the courts for years while the price of the land escalates.

Already, owners of much of the land needed for the project have said they are unwilling to sell to the state and might wage a court fight against condemnation.

While the compromise on the bill is expected to ease the way for approval by the Judiciary Committee, the measure still faces strong opposition from some Democrats who object to any plan for an Eastside prison.

Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles), a Judiciary Committee member and leading critic of the governor’s prison plan, said, “At this point I don’t see where the governor has given.”

Torres, nonetheless, predicted that the compromise bill “may very well fly out of the (Judiciary) committee.”

Even so, another tough fight could occur on the Senate floor, where the bill would need a two-thirds majority for passage. That would require a strong bipartisan coalition, something Deukmejian was unable to forge last year.