Jail Initiative Drive Loses Its Steam : Support Wanes After Hoopla of Kickoff Meeting

Two months ago, in a high school gymnasium packed with more than 1,000 cheering people, a brass band and a red-white-and-blue stage, it appeared that the initiative to locate all future Orange County jails in the city of Santa Ana was a powerful movement in its infancy.

At the kickoff rally for the initiative, two of the county’s five supervisors, city officials and community leaders ignited the crowd with enthusiasm by talking tough against the 6,000-bed jail complex the county plans to build in Gypsum and Coal canyons.

It appeared then that there would be a natural countywide constituency for an initiative to guarantee those Orange County residents outside Santa Ana that they would never have to worry about living next to a jail.

But the spark has not taken hold. While the group’s leaders are still optimistic, their active volunteers have dwindled to a small core; their fund-raising efforts have had bleak results, and they have a lot more signatures to collect.

“It was a great kickoff, but the thing that’s happening is that people aren’t coming forward to volunteer,” said Tony Apodaca, a member of Citizens Against the Gypsum Jail Site. “The opposition now is people’s apathy.”

People ‘Forget’

Said Robert Kiley, a founder of Taxpayers for a Centralized Jail: “I thought we could generate a lot more interest in different areas than we could, but then I’m an optimist. You have to have these things in front of people all the time, or they forget.”

Now, at the halfway point in the effort to collect enough signatures to qualify the initiative for the ballot in June, 1988, the group has about a third of the signatures it needs.

At a meeting of the Taxpayers for a Centralized Jail on Thursday night, the organizers counted about 22,000 signatures collected since the kickoff rally on Oct 14. To qualify the initiative for the ballot, the group needs the signatures of about 66,000 registered voters by the first week of February.

And the county registrar of voters recommends that the group collect an additional 10,000 signatures as a cushion, because it is common for many names to be disqualified during the validation process.

The group has pledged to meet the February deadline. But if it fails, it has about another seven weeks to continue gathering signatures to qualify the measure for the November ballot instead.

“We are shooting for the February date. But if not, we will qualify it for the November ballot,” Kiley said.

At the October rally, where people waved hand-painted signs, passed out bumper stickers and wore Styrofoam campaign hats, the organization received about $5,000 in checks and another $3,000 in pledges, Kiley said.

Then it hired a political consultant to help steer the initiative through the electoral process. But a few weeks later, the consultant was released because the group ran out of money.

Rick Violett, chairman of the taxpayers group, declined to say how much money his organization has raised. He said the figure will be revealed at the end of January, when the group has to file a financial disclosure statement with the county.

But he did say, “We have cut back on expenses.”

Slow in Holiday Season

All the fund raising since the kickoff rally has been through word of mouth, said Jim Ribacchi, treasurer of the taxpayers group.

Violett and other members of the group said the holiday season has not been a good time to try to sell a political campaign. They now say that they are planning to recharge the signature-gathering drive with higher-profile events in January.

“They are trying to come up with ideas now . . . to get a (last-ditch) contribution drive going,” Apodaca said. “Without that, I can almost see that jail starting.”

Many initiative sponsors, especially those in statewide campaigns, hire private companies to collect signatures because the task is so formidable. Rosalyn Lever, assistant registrar of voters for the county, said there has not been an initiative to reach the countywide ballot by petition since at least 1980, although there have been many attempts.

Kiley said the taxpayers group does have money that it is planning to use to pay college students to collect signatures. And he said the group is planning to advertise in some local newspapers.

Taxpayers for a Centralized Jail is a coalition of anti-jail groups from around the county that have formed formed in opposition to existing county jails or proposed jails.

The coalition includes groups opposed to the expansion of the Theo Lacy branch jail in Orange, to the proposed Katella-Douglas jail in Anaheim, to the expansion of the James A. Musick branch jail near El Toro and to south county locations for a new jail capable of housing large numbers of medium- to maximum-security inmates.

The genesis of the coalition was the Board of Supervisors’ 3-2 vote in July to locate its new jail complex in Gypsum and Coal canyons.

While much of the initial support came from residents living near the canyons, which are close to the northeastern border with Riverside County, the initiative was worded so that it would attract support from all the groups that have had a brush with the controversy caused by jails in--or proposed for--their neighborhoods.

The coalition argues that Santa Ana, as the county seat and the site of the main men’s jail, is the most logical to place to put the jail proposed for Gypsum and Coal canyons.

Several of the groups were present at the kickoff rally. But lately, leaders of the taxpayers group say, the active volunteers have dwindled to those living in Yorba Linda and Anaheim neighborhoods adjacent to Gypsum Canyon.

Apodaca said there are only about two dozen volunteers still active.

William S. Craycraft, a council member-elect for the new City of Mission Viejo, spoke recently at the rally for the Committee Against the Expansion of Musick.

“Once Coal Canyon was selected, then that opposition died down because there didn’t appear to be any potential of a maximum-security site” at Musick, he said.

Those who are working for the initiative say their biggest task is largely public relations--keeping the issue on people’s minds. They are still confident that county residents would favor their initiative if they can get it on the ballot.

“I think what we are concerned about is getting these signatures in,” Kiley said. “We definitely believe that once this thing is on the ballot, we will have the interest.”