Council to Sue State Over Jail : Prison: The move is an attempt to block construction of the facility in East Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to sue the California Department of Corrections in an attempt to bar construction of a state prison on the edge of downtown.

The measure, sponsored by Councilwoman Gloria Molina, directs the city attorney’s office to immediately file a lawsuit against the state. Molina and Councilman Richard Alatorre, who represent districts near the site, have staunchly opposed the prison proposal, arguing that the downtown area already has a high concentration of county jails and city lockups.

Molina said Wednesday that the state “violated all the selection processes any other state prison has ever undergone.”

East Los Angeles is a poor part of the city, she said, that was selected as a prison site on the basis of politics.

“In this instance it was just a political job as compared to an appropriate siting following all the criteria,” Molina said. “There were many sites that we pointed to that were more appropriate.”

The city attorney’s office will file a suit challenging the adequacy of the environmental impact report next week, according to Assistant City Atty. William Waterhouse.

The report failed to take into account the “visual impact” of the huge facility and contained insufficient measures to mitigate traffic problems that will be created, he said.

The lawsuit will also attack the plan as an “arbitrary and capricious” administrative action as well as a waste of taxpayers’ money, he said.

The $147-million facility will cost 20% to 30% more than it should because of its design and because it will be built in an urban area where costs are high, he said.

The council decision to sue comes after five years of bitter controversy in Sacramento and anger in East Los Angeles where the prison is to be built.

Last month, state officials gave final approval for construction of the 1,450-bed, medium-security facility on 20 acres of industrial land near Washington Boulevard and Santa Fe Avenue. State officials have predicted that construction could begin on the site as early as this summer.

The location was first proposed in 1985 by Gov. George Deukmejian, who argued that while Los Angeles County accounts for 40% of state prison inmates, it has no state prison.

The fate of the Los Angeles prison is tied to a similar facility planned for Lancaster. The two projects were linked in Sacramento after Democratic lawmakers from Los Angeles complained that Republican constituents in rural parts of the county ought to accept an equal share of the prison burden.

Under a legislative compromise, neither prison could be occupied until construction is begun on the other.

But the fate of both prisons has become less certain in recent days. On Tuesday, the Lancaster City Council voted unanimously to file a lawsuit challenging the validity of the environmental study on the Lancaster site, approved last week by the state Department of Corrections.