Choosing Jail Site

Articles in The Times recently have provided a great deal of publicity for the comments of people opposed to the county jail going into Santa Ana. (Of course, it was perfectly all right with these people if the jail went into somebody else’s community.)

One person opposed to the jail being in Santa Ana was quoted in The Times as stating, “I would feel ashamed if a jail went in there.” Another said, “We just want to live in peace and there are many other places they can build a jail.” Another was quoted as saying the actions of the Board of Supervisors regarding the handling of a potential jail site were “an abuse against the community.”

The correlation between the comments attributed to the people opposed to the jail being in Santa Ana (where it ought to be) is uncanny in similarity to the comments made months ago by we citizens of the north county area when learning that the Orange County Board of Supervisors ganged up on us to throw the jail in our back yard and keep it out of theirs.

However, a fourth person was quoted in The Times as stating that “the community won’t permit this. Imagine, those north county residents have money so they want to send their prisoners here.” Now that comment got quite a chuckle around the north county area. Gee, is the jail really being planned to house an influx of criminals from crime-ridden Anaheim Hills and Yorba Linda, as opposed to Santa Ana?

What we residents of the north county area did to fight a gross injustice was truly an outstanding feat. Nobody, including the press, thought we could do it.

Let us just hope that now that the shoe is on the other foot, we have more maturity than to step into the hypocritical name-calling and racism sewage that was demonstrated in the past by Santa Ana people toward north county residents for opposing the Gypsum Canyon jail.

G.G. LOFTON

Anaheim