Study Urging Sale of Seized Ranch Kept From Board

A controversial report recommending that the county sell a $1.2-million ranch--instead of giving it to the sheriff for a narcotics training center--was withheld from the Board of Supervisors for more than three months, The Times learned Wednesday.

During the delay, at least portions of the report were made available to Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates, who strongly opposes the sale, according to a county administrator and an irate supervisor.

Gates denied that he has seen the report, which will not be submitted to the Board of Supervisors until Friday, but he conceded that his staff had been briefed on it some time late last year. According to county administrators, the report was first requested by supervisors two years ago. The board again requested the report last spring, and it was finished in October.

The county administrative office report recommends that the sprawling, 213-acre Rancho del Rio, on the border of Orange and Riverside counties and seized during a drug raid in early 1988, be sold to help defray the costs of the Sheriff’s Department, estimated to be running about $6 million in the red this year.

“My office has received strong indication that the report was held up in the county administrator’s office and made available to the sheriff or his personnel rather than being forwarded to the board,” an angry Supervisor Roger R. Stanton said.

“The fault lies with whoever made the decision to withhold the information, which is basically withholding it from the people of Orange County,” he said. “If you can’t trust the people that you hire to work for the taxpayers, then we ought to have a whole new crew come in.”

John W. Sibley, associate county administrative officer for finances, confirmed that a draft of the report was completed last October, but he said that Larry Parrish, who was then chief administrative officer, decided to hold on to the report. Sibley said he did not know why Parrish did not submit the report last fall. Parrish has since left the office to become a full-time lobbyist for the firm that represents the county’s interest in the state Legislature.

Parrish said in a telephone interview that he had had several discussion with Gates about the “looming recommendation that the ranch be sold.” He said he did not remember whether he had given Gates a copy of the report but that he thought he had.

Parrish said he did not think the report was ready to be submitted to the Board of Supervisors. “Staff had developed a position that they thought was sound. I wasn’t certain of it at that time,” he recounted.

Sibley also said Gates indicated at a budget meeting Wednesday that he had already seen a copy of the report, but the sheriff denied it.

“That’s not to say some of the staff” may not have been told about the recommendations, Gates added when asked about Sibley’s comments. “We’ve been told that the original report’s recommendation was to sell.”

The report recommends that the county rezone the property and divide it into residential lots before putting it up for sale. Such a move could increase the value of the property to $2 million, the report says.

That money could be used to pay off some of the Sheriff Department’s deficit, which is running about $6 million, according to Sibley’s estimate. The department has exceeded its budget, reportedly because of additional salaries, medical supplies, clothing for jail inmates and rising transportation costs.

“You don’t go over budget and then pour money into a new facility,” said Board Chairman Don R. Roth, who has been increasingly critical of the politically powerful sheriff.

“He’s got the cowboy hat,” Roth quipped. “I just have a few ideas about the budget.”

Gates dismissed criticism of his recommendation to turn Rancho del Rio into a training center for narcotics agents, contending instead that it would allow the county to train 90 officers a year at no extra cost.

Gates said the center would be staffed by educators from local colleges and universities. Construction costs for transforming the ranch into a training center would be donated by local business leaders and the Sheriff’s Advisory Council, a private group of local business and community leaders, Gates said.

Gates warned that selling the ranch to reduce his department’s deficit would probably violate the intent of federal drug laws. Under the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, local law enforcement agencies may use property and cash seized from drug dealers to enhance their battle against traffickers.

“As we understand it, it’s not supposed to be used to augment the normal budget . . . “ Gates said. “The money is supposed to go toward narcotics and drug enforcement.”

Rancho del Rio is the former property of Daniel James Fowlie, who is in prison in La Paz, Mexico, fighting extradition on charges of running a marijuana-smuggling operation out of the ranch.

Reached at the prison Wednesday, Fowlie said he believes the property may have been seized illegally by the federal government and that the county could have problems if it tries to sell it.