San Gabriel Valley Cities Balk at Accepting State Parole Offices

The search for a site in the western San Gabriel Valley for a state parole office reminds some people of the barge filled with trash that was at sea for weeks because no city would let it dock.

State parole offices are so unpopular in the western San Gabriel Valley that the cities of Alhambra and Monterey Park are going to pay up to $100,000 each to get rid of one.

The prospect of a replacement site in Pasadena was so unsettling to some residents that 4,324 of them signed petitions to keep an office out of their neighborhoods.

There is no doubt, said one state parole official, that it has become very difficult to find a suitable location in the area that will not generate opposition since the state agreed to close an office on the Alhambra-Monterey Park border.

“We’re sort of on the run,” said Robert B. Pomerenke, deputy regional parole administrator.

Nevertheless, Edward Veit, the Department of Corrections deputy director in charge of parole and community services, said he is hopeful that the state will find a suitable office in the Pasadena area soon. “The city is working with us,” Veit said. “We’re looking at several sites.”

Agree on Costs

The state has promised to close the Alhambra-Monterey Park office by October, and those two cities have agreed to help pay the costs of moving to the Pasadena area. Parole officials said Monterey Park and Alhambra will pay about $100,000 each for relocation benefits and to pay off the lease. That amount could be reduced if the vacated building is rented to a new tenant.

But before the site is closed, the Department of Corrections must find a new location. The site that was first selected by the department is in the Hastings Ranch area of Pasadena, but homeowners have organized a campaign to block that proposal, contending that an influx of felons would endanger their neighborhood.

Pomerenke said the suggestion that parolees are likely to commit crimes while they are on their way to or from parole offices is unfounded.

“Parolees will tell you, ‘We’re crooks, but we’re not stupid,’ ” he said. “ ‘We’re not going to screw up around the parole office where parole agents are going in and out constantly. That’s a ticket back to prison.’

“A person is probably safer having a parole office next door in terms of safety from parolees than living far away.”

Persuasion Difficult

Nevertheless, Jerome DiMaggio, regional administrator who oversees parole offices throughout Los Angeles County, conceded that persuading people that parole offices are good neighbors is difficult. “We’re convinced that parole offices are pretty quiet places,” DiMaggio said, “but it’s hard to convince other people of that.”

DiMaggio said the state has operated a parole office not far from Alhambra High School for 10 years without complaint; while an office on Garvey Avenue at the Alhambra-Monterey Park border was added last year to handle a growing parolee population. Together, the offices supervise 2,000 parolees.

Pomerenke said parole officials became aware of neighborhood concern about the Garvey Avenue office last summer after a woman was beaten and robbed in her back yard and relatives blamed the attack on the presence of the parole office. Parole agents checked the description of the attackers against parolees, but found no match, he said .

Nevertheless, a community campaign to close the office got under way and before long the parole office was being depicted as the law enforcement equivalent of a toxic waste pit.

DiMaggio, who lives in Alhambra, said the community opposition was overwhelming. Even priests, who might be expected to show some compassion, came forward at community meetings to denounce the parole office for bringing unkempt people to the neighborhood, he said.

Hits a Low Point

DiMaggio said the low point was reached when the PTA at Monterey Highlands School “decided they would have kids draw pictures of people being strangled and stuff, with little notations saying, ‘Don’t let this happen to me,’ and mailed the whole package off to the governor.”

William Carroll, principal of Monterey Highlands School, said the PTA organized the letter campaign to the governor, but did not control what the children wrote or drew.

Carroll said he shared the concern of parents and residents about a parole office in the middle of a residential neighborhood and only two blocks from his school.

At the same time, he said, he appreciates the state’s difficulty in finding a suitable site.

Carroll said the fact that the school has experienced no problems with parolees since the office opened may be due to increased patrolling by police.

Source of Friction

But the patrols have been a source of friction between police and the parole office. According to DiMaggio, Monterey Park and Alhambra police have acted unprofessionally, stationing their patrol cars across from the parole office and harassing parolees.

Alhambra City Manager Kevin Murphy defended the increasing patrols as necessary to control crime and reassure residents. Both the Alhambra and Monterey Park police departments reported last year that crime increased after the parole office opened, but neither agency will comment now on the crime problem.

Murphy said the cities agreed to stop talking publicly about crime around the parole office after the state promised to close it. “We have kind of a pact with Monterey Park that we are not going to say any more,” Murphy said. “We’re not going to make any comments to inflame the controversy up north.”

“Up north” is Pasadena, where residents collected more than 4,300 signatures in a week to keep the parole office out of their neighborhood after they discovered that the closure of the Alhambra office would be followed by the opening of an office in the Hastings Ranch area.

Ann Ziol, one of the leaders of the Hastings Ranch opposition, said that since Alhambra and Monterey Park forced the parole office out of their community, she does not want it in Hastings Ranch either. Who would want to force the parole office out, “if crime had not become a real problem?” she asked.

Incorrect Image

DiMaggio said such problems stem from the public’s incorrect image of a large number of parolees visiting a parole office every day. There is some truth to that in urban offices, where many parolees are homeless and come in regularly, he said.

But at outlying offices in areas such as Pasadena and Alhambra, parole agents spend most of their time in the field, seeing parolees at home or work, he said. Parolees may go to the offices occasionally for drug testing, social services or some other reason, but the number of parolees using the office on a typical day would be no more than 25, he maintained.

Harold Britton, president of the Lower Hastings Ranch Homeowners Assn., said he doubts the number would be as low as 25. But, in any event, he does not want the state bringing felons into his neighborhood.

Although about 700 of the 900 parolees who would be served by the Pasadena office live in Pasadena, Britton said very few of them are from Hastings Ranch.

Britton said he is also concerned because the parole population is expanding rapidly, and the number of parolees being supervised by the local office could increase dramatically in the next few years.

Numbers Grow

The increase in the number of people sent to prison in the last decade is being reflected in the number of people being released on parole. Statewide, there were fewer than 20,000 people on parole from state prison at the end of 1983, but that number has now reached 52,000, and is expected to climb to 75,000 by 1991.

The state is planning to open 15 to 20 new parole offices statewide in the next year, and eight of them will be in Los Angeles County.

Veit said the state has rarely encountered opposition to parole offices elsewhere in the state. The East San Gabriel Valley, for instance, is served by parole offices in West Covina that have drawn no complaints, said West Covina Police Chief Craig Meacham.

Veit said one exception to the acceptance of parole operations occurred in El Cajon in San Diego County, where residents and the City Council fought the location of an office for three years, claiming that the safety of children attending nearby schools would be endangered. Last year, the state overrode the objections, told the city it had no legal right to block the parole office and moved parole agents in.

El Cajon City Manager Bob Acker said the office has been open a year now, without creating problems. There is no evidence that felons have committed crimes in the neighborhood before or after their parole office visits, he said.

‘Isn’t That Bad’

“Having the parole office in town isn’t that bad,” Acker said, noting that the parole agents stationed there actually are an asset to local law enforcement. “The downside,” he said “is that within the general community, we have a group of parolees coming in.”

DiMaggio said several buildings are under consideration for the Pasadena office, in addition to the Rosemead Boulevard site. They include a 10-story office building near the Foothill Freeway, a former supermarket in Altadena and a commercial building at Lake Avenue and Union Street. DiMaggio said the latter building, however, is probably too small and lacks adequate parking.

The state needs an office with 9,000 to 12,000 square feet, ample parking, and access to public transportation. Pasadena city officials said they were told by parole officials that the office should not be placed too close to police and court buildings because that would make parolees nervous.

DiMaggio said some parolees might be reluctant to visit a parole office near a police station, but that is not a major concern in picking a site.

The state will continue to study the sites proposed in Pasadena and meet with city officials before arriving at a decision, he said.

Montoya Bill

Meanwhile, state Sen. Joseph B. Montoya (D-Whittier), who introduced a bill to restrict the location of parole offices after residents in Alhambra and Monterey Park complained about the Garvey Avenue site, has begun modifying his proposal.

Originally, the bill would have prohibited the placement of a parole office within three miles of a school or park unless the city or county government gives its approval. But parole officials complained that almost all of their offices are within three miles of a school or park.

Michael Gomez, a senior consultant to Montoya, said the bill is being rewritten to require the Department of Corrections to develop formal guidelines for the location of probation offices and to prohibit their placement within 500 yards of a school, park or school bus stop unless they are separated by a freeway or some other barrier.