Canyon Jail Foes Fighting the Clock : 16,000 Signatures Still Needed to Get on November Ballot

Squeezed together in front of Howard Garber’s motor home, about 20 campaign volunteers wore ear-to-ear smiles as they posed for a photograph and stared into the evening sun last Wednesday.

It was the final night of a three-night signature-gathering blitz, and the volunteers had gathered in the parking lot of Vons supermarket in Anaheim Hills before fanning out to neighborhoods in nearby Placentia, Yorba Linda and Villa Park.

The volunteers’ goal: to finish gathering enough signatures to put an initiative on the November ballot that will force county supervisors to locate the proposed $660-million Gypsum Canyon jail--and all future county jails--in Santa Ana.

Last July, the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted 3 to 2 in favor of the Gypsum Canyon location south of the Riverside Freeway, east of the homes in Anaheim Hills. Construction is scheduled sometime in the 1990s, depending on the county’s ability to pay for it or sell bonds.

The controversial vote angered some Anaheim-area residents, but the issue has not caught fire countywide.

Blitz Gets 2,000 Signers

Indeed, as the campaign volunteers gathered Wednesday night, it appeared that the clock had almost run out on their cause.

Wednesday night, the petition circulators started out about 18,000 signatures shy of the 66,000 needed to place the initiative on the fall ballot. The three-night blitz netted only 2,000 more.

The remaining 16,000 or so signatures must be gathered before the June 30 deadline for submitting signatures for verification by the county registrar’s office in time for the November ballot.

In the days following the three-night effort, those cold realities left leaders of the initiative campaign acknowledging that Orange County voters probably will not settle this year the explosive issue of where to place the county’s proposed 6,100-bed jail.

“Everybody is frustrated and tired with the limited amount of time they (state laws) give you to place an initiative on the ballot,” said Bob Zemel, chairman of the Anaheim Hills Citizens Coalition, one of the two main groups fighting the Gypsum Canyon jail site. “It will take an unbelievable effort to make the June 30 deadline.”

Still, Zemel and other initiative supporters aren’t giving up.

Still ‘Optimistic’

Referring to the 10,000 petitions the group mailed out several months ago, the pro-initiative forces are hoping that anyone with completed petitions sitting “on their dressers at home” will mail them before Thursday’s deadline.

“I’m optimistic that will happen,” Zemel said.

So is Garber, legislative chairman of Taxpayers for a Centralized Jail, the other group fighting the Gypsum Canyon site. Garber is confident that the two groups can finish collecting the 66,000 signatures needed by Aug. 15, a backup deadline that, if met, would allow the initiative to appear on the June, 1990, ballot.

“As time goes on,” Garber said, “we’re obviously going to get additional signatures. I don’t want people to think it’s all over at the end of the month if we don’t make” the deadline.

The initiative supporters have been down this road before.

In late January, the supporters realized that they were about 30,000 signatures short of the 66,000 required for a spot on the June ballot. Refusing to give up, they started over, an action that bought an additional six months for their petition drive. They set their sights on a November vote.

Selection Process

The supervisors’ controversial site selection last July followed years of studies.

The board vote was strongly influenced by a federal judge’s contempt citation of Sheriff Brad Gates and board members for not complying with a 1978 order to ease overcrowding at the central jail in downtown Santa Ana.

Public officials and residents of communities near Gypsum Canyon--such as Anaheim, Yorba Linda and Placentia--have long opposed placing the jail there. They argue that locating a new jail in the canyon would increase crime and depress property values. Opponents also argue that the canyon jail would drastically increase inmate and visitor traffic on the Riverside Freeway by as many as 8,000 vehicle trips per day, according to one county study.

Moreover, opponents of the Gypsum Canyon site say, the facility would cost much less if it were built in Santa Ana, either on top of or near the already existing jail facilities. They say that Santa Ana--the county seat and site of the main county courthouse--is a better place to build the jail.

Armed with petitions, opponents of the Gypsum Canyon site began collecting signatures last October.

“It’s an uphill battle,” admitted Rick Violett, chairman of Taxpayers for a Centralized Jail. “We knew that from the start.”

The biggest obstacle has been apathy, activists say, because it is difficult convincing residents beyond the vicinity of the proposed jail that they should have an interest in the issue.

“The rest of the county could care less,” Garber said. “That’s why we’re having such a problem.”

The jail initiative, supporters say, would protect all county residents outside Santa Ana from having to live next to a new county penal institution.

But initiative supporters have been unable to get this message out, Zemel said, because they have been strapped for funds.

“We’re a small organization,” he said. “It’s just a handful of volunteers. We have money problems. The message isn’t out there, and we can’t afford to get it out. “

As of February, about $18,000 had been raised to fight the proposed Gypsum Canyon jail. Violett said he didn’t know how much money has been raised since then.

“Just because we’re facing an uphill battle, do you think we should give up?” Garber asked. “What’s wrong with a good fight? . . . We’re not going to have this thing here. We’re going to beat this thing one way or another.”

Fred Hunter, an Anaheim city councilman who has worked closely with initiative supporters, said he is optimistic that the Gypsum site eventually will be blocked.

If all else fails, Hunter said, “I believe the (Anaheim) City Council will file a lawsuit opposing the jail,” contending that the site selection process was flawed.