Settlement of $6.5-Million Lawsuit Paves the Way for Lynwood Justice Center

Los Angeles County and Lynwood have settled a lawsuit that threatened to delay construction of the $161-million Lynwood Regional Justice Center, a facility that city officials now say will make their community safer, boost employment and ensure evenhanded law enforcement by the Sheriff’s Department.

The County Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday to pay $6.5 million to Lynwood to drop a lawsuit that had challenged the legality of the project. The city had already ratified the agreement.

“Everything is well in Camelot,” Lynwood City Manager Charles G. Gomez said. “We’re all happy now.”

Construction of the 560,000-square-foot facility--which includes the largest sheriff’s station in the county, a 1,065-bed jail and three municipal courts--is scheduled to begin in February, with completion due 22 months later. It must start no later than September, 1990, or $86 million in state bond money will be lost.

That loss would kill the project, a key element in the county’s plan to relieve jail overcrowding so severe that it has prompted the early release of more than 100,000 inmates since May, 1988.

It was the prospect of losing state money that made Lynwood’s position so strong in December, when it filed suit alleging inadequacies in the county’s environmental impact report for the center.

Lynwood officials also said the huge project at Alameda Street and Imperial Highway would cause traffic problems, while robbing the city of millions of dollars in sales and property taxes from businesses that could have been built on the 19-acre site in the city’s most successful redevelopment zone.

In April, the city rejected a $5-million settlement offer from the county, standing firm on its demand for $10 million. Even after a Superior Court judge ruled against Lynwood in May, the prospect of a lengthy city appeal of that decision led to more negotiations.

The settlement calls for a $1.5-million payment to the city within 30 days and $1.5 million more when construction begins.

The additional $3.5 million will come over six years from road and transit funds controlled by county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, in whose 2nd District the facility will be located.

Hahn, by all accounts, was a catalyst in resolving the dispute.

Julie Wheeler, county analyst on the project, said Hahn “wanted the justice center. He wanted it for that community. And he wanted the community to feel good about it.”

Programs designated as probable recipients of the transit money include a bus station at the Lynwood Towne Center and a “job line” to bus city residents to work in downtown Los Angeles, the Port of Los Angeles and selected malls and industrial parks.

The county also agreed to support Lynwood in its bid to persuade Caltrans to place an interchange of the new Century Freeway near the proposed center.

In exchange, the city pledged not only to drop its suit but to expedite requests related to building the justice center.

Mayor pro Tem Paul H. Richards, the chief city negotiator, said Lynwood can now embrace the center. He said he expects city residents to be on construction crews and to be “first in line” for many of the 1,148 permanent jobs the county projects for it.

Its presence will also “help make our community safer,” Richards said.

Indeed, before the city first objected publicly to the project 14 months ago, officials had told concerned residents that the center would reduce crime. After all, 712 Sheriff’s Department officers will be assigned there, including 425 patrol officers, the county reports.

However, according to Richards, the justice center is most important because it will bring to Lynwood for the first time all the elements of the justice system--police, courts, prosecutors and public defenders. “We intend to be fully involved with the operation of this facility,” he said.

The result, he said, will be a reduction in the number of cases where residents allege harassment and abuse by police officers and deputy sheriffs.

“We believe by balancing the justice center with the other components . . . the prospects for the violation of constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens will be minimized,” Richards said. “This will not be a fortress unto itself.”