Picketing Stops Over Parole Office Site

A homeowners group withdrew its pickets from a proposed parole office site on Rosemead Boulevard Tuesday after Harold Britton, the group’s president, said he had received assurances that the office will be placed elsewhere.

Britton, president of the Lower Hastings Ranch Homeowners Assn., said he was told by the General Services Department, which leases office space for the state, that the state no longer intends to put the parole office at 468 N. Rosemead Blvd. But Jerome DiMaggio, regional parole administrator for the Department of Corrections, said the Rosemead Boulevard building remains under consideration, along with other sites in Pasadena.

Britton said homeowners believe the state will find another site in Pasadena so they canceled plans for a rally last week in front of the Rosemead Boulevard building and discontinued picketing that had started Monday. Hastings Ranch homeowners claim that establishing a parole office in their neighborhood would increase the crime danger. Officials with the Department of Corrections insist that parole offices do not bring crime to neighborhoods, but officials are attempting to find a site that would be more acceptable to Pasadena residents.