Orange Protesters Shout Displeasure at Jail Plans

Shouting to about 150 cheering citizens at a rally Monday night in Orange, a leader of a citizens protest group demanded “no more jails in our city.”

“Somebody might say you’ve got to put them somewhere,” Bob Bennyhoff said to the sign-waving group gathered in Orange High School’s auditorium. “You tell them we have every right to say: ‘Not in my backyard.’ ”

The first protest planned by the Citizens Committee for the Logical and Sensible Siting of Jails drew many Orange residents who waved placards, saying: “Inmates Make Bad Neighbors,” “Jail Is a Four-Letter Word” and “One Jail Break Can Ruin Your Family.”

One man sported black-and-white-striped prison garb, a ball and chain, and a badge reading, “Future Orange resident.”

It was the first of three rallies planned by the group opposing the county Board of Supervisors’ proposed expansion of the 720-bed Theo Lacy branch jail in Orange and the possible construction of a 6,100-inmate, maximum-security jail in Fremont Canyon or Irvine Lake.

The expansion proposal would give the Theo Lacy facility four more buildings and 1,016 more beds.

Data on EIR

The committee, created by the Orange City Council on June 9, provided information on the now-completed county Environmental Impact Report on the expansion.

The deadline for citizens to respond to the county report is July 2, according to Sabine Wromar, assistant to the Orange city manager.

The supervisors could reach a decision on the 6,100-inmate jail at their July 15 meeting, a date “coming up very quickly,” she said.

A $75,000 study of the Theo Lacy expansion is now under way and should be completed by the end of summer, said Gaddi H. Vasquez, the only county supervisor to attend the protest meeting. During that time, Vasquez said, public input will be sought.

Orange City Council members, Police Chief Wayne Streed and other city officials echoed the demands voiced by citizens Monday night.

Mayor pro tem Don Smith vowed to “take this all the way, as far as we have to go.”

Streed attributed a high crime rate at The City shopping center, across the street from Theo Lacy, to the presence of the jail facility and said that more than doubling its size will only make the situation worse.

“The residents feel all the county’s jail proposals end up in their backyard,” Wromar said.

The Citizens Committee is headed by Lois Barke, representing western Orange, Bill Leming, of the central Orange area and Bennyhoff, from the eastern portion of the city.

Press for United Front

City representation has been divided to present a united front, Wromar said.

Although the committee is quasi-official, Wromar insisted that it is composed of grassroots elements. The city’s political leadership will give ordinary citizens better access to the Board of Supervisors, she said.

“Public input is everything,” she declared.

The county has been trying to find new jail space since a federal judge in 1985 found the supervisors and the sheriff in contempt of court for not heeding a 1978 order to improve jail conditions in the county, especially at the main men’s jail in Santa Ana.

U.S. District Judge William P. Gray set steadily decreasing limits on the number of inmates who could be housed in the main jail and appointed a special master to monitor the county’s compliance with his orders.

The limit on the number of inmates kept in housing units on the second and third floors of the main jail is now 1,296. Inclusion of inmates in medical and processing units reportedly puts the total at more than 1,400 on many days.

Started Turning Them Away

Although the county’s branch jails have been expanded and new programs begun to cut the overall jail population, Sheriff Brad Gates ran out of room last year and started turning away people brought to the jail on misdemeanor arrests. Those offenders were given citations and ordered to appear in court on a later date.

Later, he expanded the system because of overcrowding problems, issuing citations even to people who failed to appear in court earlier and had been arrested on warrants issued by judges because of those failures to appear.

Last year, the supervisors picked a county-owned site near Anaheim Stadium for a 1,500-bed jail, but Anaheim has sued to block construction there.

Construction at that site would cost about $170 million, and state funds could not be used. The Theo Lacy expansion has been characterized as an alternative to the Anaheim site.

The cost of the Theo Lacy expansion has been estimated at $30 million, with most of that money coming from the state.