Deukmejian Rejects Plea by Lawmakers to Block Prison

A request by two Antelope Valley legislators that Gov. George Deukmejian block the start of construction for the proposed Mira Loma state prison in Lancaster until all court appeals have been exhausted has been rejected, the governor’s office said Thursday.

Deukmejian has not formally responded to the letters from state Sen. Newton R. Russell (R-Glendale) and Assemblyman Phillip Wyman (R-Tehachapi), but has no plans to halt work on the controversial prison, said Anita Mackenzie, assistant press secretary to the governor.

“The governor has been consistent in his desire to have a prison built in Los Angeles. The law requires that the state proceed expeditiously . . . and there’s no plan to stop the process at this point,” she said.

Bids for the $4.9-million grading contract were opened Thursday as scheduled, with 13 companies submitting proposals, said Christine May, spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections. May said a contract would be awarded in the next few weeks and grading could begin in less than three weeks.

Lancaster residents have vehemently opposed construction of the prison on a 252-acre site at Avenue J and 60th Street West, but have thus far lost court bids to have the prison relocated.

The Mira Loma facility is part of a 1987 “pain for pain” or “sagebrush barrio” plan that placed one proposed prison in heavily Democratic East Los Angeles and another in the heavily Republican Antelope Valley. The city of Los Angeles has gone to court to block prison construction of the eastside prison on what is called the Crown Coach site.

Wyman, in a letter sent to the governor Wednesday, asked that he use his influence “to postpone any groundbreaking at the site until all issues have been finally adjudicated to afford the county and the city of Lancaster the courtesy to pursue their available legal remedies.”

Both Wyman and Russell expressed concern that although litigation has temporarily halted the start of construction at the East Los Angeles site, court defeats have allowed plans to proceed at Mira Loma.

Russell urged the governor in a telegram to delay construction until “bulldozers are equally poised at both sites.”

“It would be truly ironic,” Wyman wrote, “if the ‘sagebrush barrio compromise,’ which envisioned downtown Los Angeles and the Antelope Valley suffering equal pain, led to the construction of only one prison at Mira Loma, with the Crown Coach site indefinitely stalled into the next administration.”

Earlier this week, the Lancaster City Council joined Los Angeles County in appealing a court ruling that upheld the state’s plans to build the 2,200-bed prison. The city and the county maintained that the state prepared an inadequate environmental impact report on the project.

The city and the county have also challenged the constitutionality of the legislation that authorized the two prisons. That issue will be heard on Nov. 14.

Danielle Marvin Lewis, a Lancaster real estate broker who is leading an Antelope Valley group opposed to the prison, said attorneys now expect appeals to last until the spring of 1991.