Residents Stymied by Drive for Jail : Gypsum Canyon: Recent events have alarmed surrounding communities, raising anew the specter of construction of the proposed county facility.

In the northeast reaches of Orange County, residents share a couple of passionate convictions: They insist that no jail should ever be built in Gypsum Canyon, and they are convinced that some county officials will spare no effort or expense to force it there.

“Take a look at this land,” said Pat Pepper, chairman of the Anaheim Hills Citizens Coalition, a local government watchdog group. “The best use of this land is not a jail. It’s homes. Jails belong next to courthouses, not up here.”

“Up here” is a dry box canyon plunked on the eastern border of Anaheim Hills, its mouth opening north onto the Riverside Freeway. County planners call Gypsum Canyon “remote” and say it’s just the place to lock up thousands of criminals. Jail opponents say that’s ridiculous.

“They say this is a remote site,” said Rick Violett, a Yorba Linda resident and longtime Gypsum Canyon jail opponent. “The only thing this site is remote from is three of the (county) supervisors.”

But for Violett, Pepper and scores of other opponents, the events of the past week have cascaded into an alarming avalanche of activity, raising anew the specter of jail construction in the canyon.

On Monday, a state appeals court lifted an injunction that had blocked advocates of a sales tax for jails from proceeding with a referendum. On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors activated a commission to schedule a special election, possibly in May. And on Wednesday, Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove) proposed waiving a law that prevents a simple majority of the county supervisors from acquiring the land through condemnation.

Each of those developments chips away at the financial and political obstacles preventing Gypsum Canyon from being built. And even though many more questions and hurdles remain, residents of the area say the flurry of interest has renewed their concern.

As they see it, jail supporters are trying to ram the Gypsum Canyon facility into their community despite overwhelming evidence suggesting that it belongs elsewhere.

“We don’t think that a penal institution of this size belongs in any residential community,” said Howard Garber, an Anaheim resident and community gadfly. “We’ll have periodic escapes, and even if we don’t have escapes, we’ll have the worry. It’ll be constant worry.”

In interview after interview, jail opponents--from elected officials to citizen-organizers to homeowners who have simply been pushed too far--agreed. They expressed frustration and amazement that county officials continue to push for Gypsum Canyon, and they cited a bevy of reasons why they believe that the government should look elsewhere.

Among them:

* Land in Gypsum Canyon is too expensive: The canyon is slated for residential development, and some estimates put the land value at close to $1 million an acre, far higher than other options the county might explore. Sheriff Brad Gates says a half-cent sales tax would be enough to pay for building and operating the jail; opponents disagree.

* Putting a jail in Gypsum Canyon is unsafe: Although once far from the nearest homes, growth along the Riverside Freeway has left the canyon in the center of a sprawling residential area.

* Any new jail should be built next to the Santa Ana courthouse. This would reduce transportation costs and make the new facility cheaper to operate.

* If the county cannot or will not build a new jail in Santa Ana, it should put one on property that it already owns, saving millions of dollars in land acquisition. That would probably mean expansion of the James A. Musick facility near El Toro.

Canyon jail supporters steadfastly rebut each of those points and argue that the proposed location is the product of a long and expensive county search. Dropping the canyon and switching to any other site, proponents argue, would set back the county’s jail search by several years, during which overcrowding in the current facilities would grow even worse.

That does little to mollify residents in the area.

“I’ve been familiar with this issue ever since it first raised it’s ugly head,” said Roland Bigonger, Yorba Linda’s first mayor. “The problems are still the same. I definitely still and always have felt that the jail belongs in Santa Ana.”

Carol Cantwell, a Yorba Linda resident since 1974, agrees. “The county should be using the property that it already owns or expanding the jails that they already have,” she said. “They shouldn’t be trying to build a $1-billion boondoggle.”

In the well-kept canyon and hillside neighborhoods near the proposed jail site, those are familiar arguments made by well-informed citizens who have tracked every twist and turn in the long-running controversy.

It has been nearly four years since the County Board of Supervisors named Gypsum Canyon as its choice for a new jail site. Little progress has been made toward building it, however, because, in part, of a political deadlock on the board, pitting the three-member majority against Supervisors Gaddi H. Vasquez and Don R. Roth.

Umberg’s proposal, if successful in the Legislature, could clear one of those issues by giving the three supervisors who support the canyon jail the power to acquire the land through condemnation, a process used to take property from an unwilling seller. Under current law, four votes are needed.

But canyon opponents vow to fight the assemblyman.

“He’s a Scud missile,” said Craig S. Miller, chairman of Citizens Against the Gypsum Jail. “We’re going to be the Patriots.”

Even if Umberg’s proposal won support--and political observers have their doubts--the question of money would remain.

Enter the proposed half-cent sales tax, which voters would have to approve.

That option--which will be the center of attention this week when the newly activated Regional Justice Facilities Commission meets Friday to consider scheduling a May tax referendum--could at least partially unlock the financial quandary by providing an estimated $244 million a year toward jails and law enforcement facilities.

If such a referendum were to pass, it would spell trouble for opponents of the jail. But most are convinced that voters will reject the measure, and the county will have ended up squandering at least $600,000 in a losing effort.

Others are more confident of the tax’s prospects.

A recent Times Orange County Poll found surprisingly strong support for a sales tax--49% of those interviewed said they would back a half-cent increase in their taxes to pay for a new jail, and 60% backed the tax increase once they were reminded that thousands of prisoners are being released every year to make room in the overcrowded county jails.

Still, opponents say a sales tax measure would find rough going at the polls, especially if it appears on the ballot on May 14, the date that supervisors and Gates are promoting.

“People have not seen the extra half cent that they’re going to have to start paying in April,” when the recently approved half-cent transportation tax goes into effect, Violett said. War in the gulf and new taxes on gasoline could also hurt a sales tax proposal, he and others added.

Tax or no tax, though, the canyon debate will go on. The board majority has invested more than $7 million studying the Gypsum Canyon Jail site, and those members show no sign of walking away from the proposal in favor of something else.

So for the residents of the area, every round of discussion brings new frustration that they cannot seem to squelch support for the canyon site and that their concerns are going unheeded by politicians bent on an exorbitantly expensive solution to jail overcrowding.

“I get so angry about this. I’ve drafted letters and never sent them,” said Gracie Allen, who has lived in Anaheim Hills for nine years. “I am so sick of these politicians arbitrarily making these decisions.”

Miller, himself a veteran of the Gypsum Canyon wars, agreed, but pledged that opponents will not be shoved aside.

“We’ve been at this for a long time,” he said. “I don’t think people like us are going to give up. We’re not going to roll over and play dead.”