Legislators Revive Compromise to Locate L.A. Prison at Castaic

In an attempt to end the stalemate over location of a state prison in Los Angeles County, two legislators who have been at odds over the issue got together Wednesday to revive a bill to locate the prison in a rural area north of Castaic.

Under a proposal unveiled at a Capitol news conference, the two Democratic members of the Assembly--Gloria Molina of Los Angeles and Steve Peace of Chula Vista--seek to build the prison on Los Angeles County-owned land at the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho, a jail camp for county inmates.

Molina, who has championed the fight against a prison on a site in Los Angeles’ Eastside favored by Gov. George Deukmejian, carried a similar bill last year but shelved it in the face of opposition. Now, she and Peace, who has supported the Eastside site, say they are frustrated that Deukmejian and Democrats in the Legislature have failed to reach a compromise.

“I think that pushing this bill through the legislative process is going to give an opportunity for the governor as well as the Legislature to look at a positive alternative,” said Molina, who plans to resign from the Assembly on Friday and take the seat she won earlier this month on the Los Angeles City Council.

A 1982 law bars the opening of a nearly completed prison in San Diego and another in Stockton until a prison is authorized somewhere in Los Angeles County.

Because the San Diego prison is in his district, Peace has been active in the negotiations over a Los Angeles County site, and until now has been a staunch backer of the Eastside location. He said he is now pushing for the Castaic site in the hope that it can win approval and clear the way for opening the San Diego facility.

“The inability of the Administration to embrace a reasonable two-site compromise leaves the Legislature no choice but to move forward with plans that do not include (the Eastside prison site),” Peace said.

Deukmejian has resisted proposals that would exclude the Eastside site, which is near a heavily Latino area about two miles southeast of the Los Angeles Civic Center. On Tuesday, however, two Deukmejian aides said the governor has embraced major elements of a Democratic compromise that calls for construction of two prisons in Los Angeles County--an Eastside facility that would accommodate 1,700 inmates, and another in a rural area.

Peace declined to describe his change of position as an attempt to put pressure on Deukmejian, but others familiar with the negotiations suggested that the change was intended to further encourage the governor to accept the two-site compromise.