Roos Drops Legislation to Put New Prison in Camarillo

A proposal to build a state prison at Camarillo State Hospital has been killed in the Legislature.

Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles), speaker pro tem, abandoned a proposed amendment to a prison construction bill Wednesday in the Ways and Means Committee.

The measure, which Roos introduced May 18, would have put a 1,450-bed maximum-security facility in Ventura County instead of in downtown Los Angeles. Legislators and Gov. George Deukmejian had previously agreed to build new prisons in Los Angeles and Lancaster.

Roos’ amendment was criticized by Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), whose 36th District includes Camarillo. The conservative McClintock, who has engaged in bitter partisan squabbling with the liberal Roos, said the bill was a politically motivated attack on him.

Roos dropped the amendment at the behest of Assemblyman Jack O’Connell (D-Carpinteria), whose 35th District is north of McClintock’s, said Richard Milner, Roos’ chief of staff.

“He’s expressed an interest all along,” Milner said. “Mr. O’Connell had some legislative arguments to raise.”

McClintock’s legislative assistant, Joe Yocca, had a different analysis.

“The whole thing was a game,” Yocca said. “It was a little scam. Roos was just trying to get some press out of it.”

Deukmejian had vowed to veto the prison legislation if it included Roos’ amendment. The bill, which calls for a measure on the 1990 ballot asking voter approval of bond sales to pay for prison construction, was sent to the full Assembly.