Orange County Board Chooses Site of New Jail

The Orange County Board of Supervisors, ending years of rancorous debate, voted 3 to 2 Wednesday to build a 6,191-inmate jail on 280 acres of remote canyon land in the northeast corner of the county.

Selection of the Coal-Gypsum canyon site came after seven hours of emotional testimony that ended weeks of protests against all the prospective sites. The facility will be designed to end the county’s jail overcrowding problem for the rest of the century.

The site, just south of the Riverside (91) Freeway east of Anaheim Hills, was picked over three others by Supervisors Roger R. Stanton, Thomas F. Riley and Harriett M. Wieder.

Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, whose district included three of the four sites--Coal-Gypsum Canyon among them--voted against the location. So did Supervisor Donald R. Roth, a former Anaheim mayor whose district ends near the site picked.

Stanton removed a major worry of many anti-jail forces when he said there will be no intake and release center at the new jail. Residents near the potential jail sites said they were concerned by the proposed release of up to 350 inmates each day from the jail into the community.

“I personally would not support” an intake and release center at the new jail, Stanton said. He said he would do all in his power to make sure that future boards of supervisors are barred from putting a release center at the jail.

Riley, Vasquez and Roth also opposed a release center at the new jail.

The supervisors, after picking their preferred site, are scheduled to make the decision final on Aug. 12 and to call for a more extensive environmental impact report on the site then.

The total estimated price tag for a complex spread across two or three buildings is $664 million. That will require bonds to be approved by the voters, and several supervisors expressed doubt that the voters will go along, even though Wieder noted that “we are a conservative county, and that’s why we lock people up.”

The decision capped a long search for a new site for a large jail in the county. Coal-Gypsum Canyon was first considered as a jail site in 1983, but a committee hunting for locations was disbanded in 1984 and the supervisors turned the search over to their aides.

After picking 29 “remote” sites for study, the list was narrowed to the four--Coal-Gypsum, Fremont Canyon, Irvine Lake and Chiquita Canyon--that the supervisors considered Wednesday.

Petitions bearing thousands of signatures flooded supervisors’ offices in the months preceding the vote, urging the board to pick a site “not in my backyard.”

Many Signs Carried

Opponents of the various sites packed the supervisors’ meeting room. Many carried signs: “One Jailbreak Can Ruin Your Family,” “We Don’t Want County Supervisors to Sentence Us to a Lifetime Prison Term” and “Yorba Linda Says No.”

Although the turnout of about 400 overflowed the meeting room and an adjacent hearing room, it was smaller than expected. As the hours of testimony by county staff members, supervisors and opponents dragged on, attendance dwindled, barely reaching 80 by the time of the vote.

But those who stayed urged that the jail complex be built elsewhere.

“I don’t want to go home and find my wife dead,” said Mark Haase of Yorba Linda. Haase said he lived in New York state during the 1971 uprising at Attica Prison, when more than two dozen inmates were killed, and still had “nightmares” as a result of that experience.

Such a huge prison would be a “bomb,” Haase said, urging the supervisors to build several smaller jails.

“Spread it out. Don’t put 6,191 beds in my backyard. Spread it out,” he said.

Anaheim Councilman Fred Hunter, another opponent of Gypsum-Coal, said the facility will be “the largest jail in the free world.”

“Are we going to swap the land at Musick for Irvine Co.’s land at Gypsum Canyon?” Hunter asked, referring to the James L. Musick branch jail in El Toro. “I hope not.”

Marilyn Dove, a nearby resident, said, “The mere fact that the Irvine Co. wants to acquire the Musick site” was no reason to pick the Coal-Gypsum site.

She urged the supervisors to “heed the average voter” rather than “pleasing the big-money developers and businesses,” who she said had destroyed the county’s land.

Irvine Co. Owns 3 Sites

The Irvine Co. owns the sites at Gypsum and Fremont canyons and Irvine Lake. A company representative, Carol Hoffman, said the firm opposed putting a jail at any of its sites.

But Wednesday’s vote included a preliminary decision to eventually shut the James A. Musick branch jail near El Toro and transfer its inmates to the new jail. County officials said the 100-acre Musick property probably will be sold to the Irvine Co. or traded for Gypsum Canyon.

Wendell Crow of Anaheim Hills said that he would not move his family near a jail but that he does not have that option because he already lives in an area where the jail will be built.

He told the supervisors that the colored maps of the four sites on the wall behind them were “blueprints for the slow destruction of someone’s community.”

Residents of Orange expressed opposition to the Fremont Canyon and Irvine Lake sites, which are east of Orange, saying they already have the Theo Lacy branch jail in their city, and it may be expanded.

The mayor and city attorney of San Juan Capistrano spoke out against the Chiquita Canyon site, citing impacts on traffic and the water supply, and concerns about the evacuation of inmates in an emergency at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

Many of those who testified expressed concerns for the safety of their families if a jail is built in their neighborhood.

Several urged further studies of all possible sites in the county, but the three-person majority agreed with Riley, who said, “I think the time for action is now.”

Judge’s Order Cited

Stanton and Wieder cited the looming figure of U.S. District Judge William P. Gray as they refused to delay picking a location for the jail.

In March of 1985, Gray found the supervisors and Sheriff Brad Gates in contempt of court for not obeying his 1978 order to end overcrowding at the main men’s jail in downtown Santa Ana.

In subsequent months, the supervisors expanded the capacities of the Musick and Theo Lacy branch jails, picked a site near Anaheim Stadium for a 1,500-inmate jail, speeded up construction of a Santa Ana intake and release center that will have 500 or so beds, and have proposed adding 1,000 beds to the more than 700 at Lacy.

The judge has imposed a limit of 1,296 inmates at the main men’s jail, forcing the sheriff to turn away 350 people a week with citations, rather than booking them into the jail.

Lawrence G. Grossman, appointed by Gray to oversee the county’s efforts to end jail overcrowding and hired by the county to be a consultant, told the board that most inmates are minimum or medium security.

Although the Santa Ana jail holds inmates awaiting trial on charges ranging from burglary to murder, convicts serving sentences in county jails have almost always been sentenced to one year or less. Longer terms are served in state prisons.

Stanton said the supervisors would make sure that the sheriff puts inmates awaiting trial in the Santa Ana jail, near the courts, and the sentenced inmates at the new jail. To do otherwise would be “irrational and rather stupid,” Stanton said.

Veiled Threat

When Wieder asked Grossman how Gray would feel if the supervisors delayed a decision, he smilingly retorted, “Supervisor, are you asking me to describe the federal prison for women?”

“If you are going to incarcerate people, you have got to have beds for them,” Grossman warned the supervisors. Judge Gray “is extremely concerned. He is watching the actions that Orange County takes with respect to jail overcrowding and confinement,” Grossman said.

“Mr. Grossman has provided a rather sharp spear to that section which spurs one on,” Stanton said.

But Supervisors Riley and Roth conceded that a lawsuit will probably be filed no matter which site was picked.

“We’re buying ourselves additional expensive lawsuits, which we can’t afford,” Roth said.

Riley said, “I am almost certain that the decision will result in a lawsuit challenging the county’s actions.”

Supervisors noted that the decision on Coal-Gypsum was preliminary and the final decision will come later, as will many more studies on the site’s impact on specific factors of the environment and ways to ease them.

HISTORY OF JAIL-OVERCROWDING DISPUTE

Here is a chronology of important events in the controversy concerning overcrowding at Orange County jail facilities.

Nov. 10, 1968. Construction completed at main men’s jail in downtown Santa Ana.

May 4, 1978. U.S. District Judge William P. Gray orders Orange County to improve conditions in the jail.

March 18, 1985. Gray finds Sheriff Brad Gates and the five county supervisors in contempt for not heeding his 1978 order and fines them.

September, 1985. Gates begins releasing low-risk defendants with citations, rather than booking them into jail, because of crowded conditions.

Nov. 13, 1985. Construction begins on the Intake and Release Center next to main jail to house 382 to 700 inmates; it is to open in the fall of 1987.

March 18, 1986. Supervisors choose county-owned property at Katella Avenue and Douglass Road in Anaheim, near Anaheim Stadium, as the site for a 1,500-inmate jail.

October, 1986. Gates expands the cite-and-release program from newly arrested defendants to people arrested on warrants issued because they had failed to appear in court on previous charges.

Nov. 26, 1986. Supervisors approve feasibility study for jail in a remote area of county to hold up to 5,000 inmates; selected as potential sites are Gypsum Canyon/Coal Canyon, Fremont Canyon, Irvine Lake and Chiquita Canyon.

March 27, 1987. Presiding Municipal Judge Gary P. Ryan orders Gates to show why he should not be held in contempt of court for releasing six men with citations after judges had issued bench warrants ordering their arrests.

April 30, 1987. Ryan finds Gates in contempt of court for releasing the six men when there were empty beds at the branch jails.

July 15, 1987. Supervisors choose Gypsum Canyon/Coal Canyon site for a jail that will house about 6,000 inmates.