$250,000 in Drug-Fighting Money Spent on Bush’s Visit

The Sheriff’s Department revealed Wednesday that it spent about $250,000 from its drug-fighting budget to prepare a remote canyon ranch for an Orange County visit by President Bush in April.

The expense was immediately criticized by a county Democratic figure who said it was inappropriate to spend money intended for drug investigations on a “dog and pony show” for the President.

“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars could go a long way to build more drug rehabilitation centers, pay more adequate salaries for our law enforcement personnel and help train more officers so we can stop drugs, instead of paying for a public relations campaign, which is what that was,” said John Hanna, former county Democratic chairman.

Most of the money was used to turn a rustic backwoods ranch into a 90-minute staging area for the President on April 25. Workers graded and spread gravel on a 3.5-mile dirt road, added a stage and put in telephone lines, electricity, toilets and furniture for a closed-door lunch for Bush and local drug agents.

The money also paid for several buses from the Orange County Transit District to carry about 1,400 invited guests to the ranch, near Ortega Highway and Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park.

The 213-acre site, known as Rancho del Rio, was formerly owned by a notorious drug smuggler and was seized in 1985 during an investigation conducted by the Sheriff’s Department. The county now owns the ranch.

Promoters of Bush’s visit selected the site as a good setting for his anti-drug speech, during which he presented the county and other local law enforcement agencies with a $4.39-million check for money seized during a separate county drug investigation.

Assistant Sheriff Walter Fath said the $250,000 will be paid from the county’s share of that check.

Under a 1984 federal law, the money seized during a drug investigation must be spent on suppression of drugs. Fath said the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles--at the county’s request--ruled that the President’s anti-drug speech constituted a drug education expense and was therefore a proper use of the seized money.

Fath, who said he was speaking for Sheriff Brad Gates, said that the cost was close to what the department expected when it started the project and that Gates “made both the Board of Supervisors and the County Administrative Office aware of the visit. They knew it was coming out of the narcotics fund, and people knew what we were doing up there.”

Thomas F. Riley, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, was unavailable late Wednesday.

County Administrative Officer Larry Parrish said that he was unaware of the exact cost of the President’s visit but that he was “generally aware.”

He said Gates met with Riley before he proceeded with the improvements at the ranch, and “that’s fine with me.”

Fath also said that with the improvements, it is now possible to use the ranch as a training facility and conference center for law enforcement agencies. That is the purpose Gates has suggested to the Board of Supervisors for the ranch.

But officially, the future of the ranch remains under study. Privately, some county officials would rather see a different use. It has been suggested that the ranch be sold to gain more money for the Sheriff’s Department or even that the site be used for a remote jail.

Parrish predicted Wednesday, however, that Gates is now more likely to get his wish for a training center, because the improvements needed for that purpose have already taken place.

“It was fortuitous (for Gates) that the President of the United States showed up,” Parrish said. “Certainly, activities (improvements) were possible in that scenario that would have been far more difficult. So when you’ve got all the (political) talent in the world and all the luck in the world, you’re in pretty good shape.”

Fath said the $250,000 estimate does not include several thousand dollars in goods and services donated to prepare for the President’s visit. The food for the invited guests and the President’s lunch were donated, as well as $8,000 in flowers and the landscaping crews to plant them.