Prison-Site Issue Is the Straw That Breaks East L.A.’s Back

When Richard Nathan and I bought Crown Coach International in 1983, we knew that eventually we were going to have to make a decision about what to do with the site in East Los Angeles, since we planned to move the major part of the operation to Chino. But we scarcely imagined that the property would become the focus of a major legislative battle. And that I would become an advocate for local residents against the governor would have seemed to me little short of fantastic.

In 1984 Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, anxious to forestall the building of a prison in a section of his own district near Lancaster, heard that we were interested in selling the site and contacted the governor’s office. Knowing that a new state prison was critically needed in the Los Angeles area, I looked on the sale as a business proposition and began two years of negotiations with a representative of the governor’s office. Eventually, however, other negotiations of a more personal nature convinced me that the governor was wrong and that the residents opposing the prison were right.

To those who wonder why someone with a Welsh name would speak up in a largely Latino cause, I would point out that almost 20 years ago I worked in behalf of Cesar Chavez’s farm workers’ movement, and that I have identified with the underdog on other occasions: In 1979 I was a co-organizer of a Cambodian relief operation when the State Department washed its hands of tens of thousands of refugees. And I have had a longtime alliance of the heart with Martha Sanchez, who once worked for the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund.

Until recently it was a crippling political reality that, with minor exceptions, no Latinos served on any key body of city government. The community was virtually isolated and paralyzed from lack of political power. Examples abound: law-enforcement officials dragging screaming residents from their homes in Chavez Ravine to make way for Dodger Stadium, Caltrans criss-crossing and cutting up East Los Angeles with freeways without regard for neighborhood cohesiveness.

Now a new generation of Latino leaders has emerged. They are bright, articulate and committed individuals who lack tolerance for the discrimination of the past; forceful advocates for their constituents, they won’t be impressed into the subservience of politics as usual.

“Now that we understand the rules of the game, we intend to be full-time players,” Martha, who was educated at Yale and Stanford Law School, told me.

For two years she and I were on different sides. We would go out to dinner and have hard-fought and heartfelt debates. Over a period of time I came to see that, while the need for a prison was unquestionable, the site battle has much more to say about how government can treat minorities suspected of little political power.

While the governor’s staff early in the process held a few so-called public hearings on the Crown Coach site, thereby meeting the legal requirements, it misunderstood and underestimated the political groundswell pent up from similar patronizing government exercises in the past.

“No one votes down there,” a legislator once told me. “After all, they’re so disorganized that we’ll have it built before they wake up.”

Such outright disrespect and passive contempt for the men and women of East Los Angeles had always paved the way for jamming projects through in this mostly Spanish-speaking neighborhood. But East Los Angeles has changed radically, and no longer will stand idly by as government tries to dump its “tough ones” onto a previously submissive and naive community.

By last fall Martha had brought me around to the residents’ viewpoint, and I resolved to contribute to a favorable resolution by preempting the state. In December I was able to find another buyer, Ramser Development Co., which bought the Crown Coach site for $5.5 million, its appraised value. Since then Ramser has gone ahead with development, and now has invested more than $10 million in all.

Let’s face it: No one wants a prison in his backyard--be it Beverly Hills, Lancaster or East Los Angeles. We all know what would have happened in the past, but a past of discrimination against Latinos is no longer prologue to the future. Since East Los Angeles is going to demand equal treatment, and the Crown Coach site is going to be far more expensive than originally contemplated, the governor should end the controversy by building the prison at the Hungry Valley location.

Admittedly, the transportation of prisoners will be time-consuming and expensive. Families will have to travel great distances to visit loved ones. And inmates capable of reform will be further isolated. Nevertheless, it’s time to recognize that East Los Angeles has had more than its fair share of such projects. Enough is enough. A new generation demands the respect and recognition that it has earned the hard way.