LOCAL ELECTIONS : Measure J Could Make Canyon Jail Reality : The success or failure of the half-cent sales tax initiative may turn on whether voters see the facility as essential to their safety or merely a drain on their pocketbooks.

In a conference room at the Comfort Suite at the northern edge of Anaheim Hills, about 200 residents crowded together last week to hear about the political battle shaping up over Measure J, the half-cent sales tax initiative on the May 14 ballot.

For years now, these residents from Anaheim Hills and Yorba Linda have fought against county plans to build a 6,700-bed regional jail facility in Gypsum Canyon, located just about a mile from where they were meeting.

Don R. Roth, the Anaheim area’s representative on the Board of Supervisors, was on hand to tell them how, in just a few short weeks, the notion of building the Gypsum Canyon jail has gone from a remote possibility mired in political disagreement to a potential reality hinging on an election that will undoubtedly be hard-fought.

“Sadly enough, I have no good news for you,” Roth told the crowd. “I’m going to let you evaluate for yourselves the decision of whether you should vote yes or no on Measure J. . . . But I’m here today to tell you things are not good.”

With less than 10 weeks to go before the election, the fight over Measure J is shaping up as a contest of David-vs.-Goliath proportions.

On the one side--the faction that supports not only Measure J but also a proposal to use the tax revenue to build a new facility in Gypsum Canyon--is a formidable coalition of law enforcement officials and anti-crime advocates. They are led by Sheriff Brad Gates, who is under a federal court order to ease jail overcrowding.

Gates’ group is prepared to raise at least $300,000 to convince county voters that the only alternative to building a jail at Gypsum Canyon is to watch inmates being released because there is no more room at the county’s current facilities.

“The time for discussion and debate is over,” Gates said recently. “Now it’s time to build a jail.”

On the other side of the issue are the residents of Anaheim Hills, nearby Yorba Linda and parts of Corona in Riverside County, who shudder at the thought of having maximum-security inmates housed practically in their back yards, near their churches and schools.

Opponents of Measure J have few financial resources for their campaign, and no professional staff to get the word out about what they perceive as flaws in the sales-tax measure. Money won’t drive their campaign, they say, mainly because they won’t have much. Instead, they will rely on the volunteer efforts of residents driven by a passionate desire to keep a jail out of their neighborhood.

“It’s always difficult when a grass-roots group goes up against the moneyed political powers in Orange County,” said Carol Cantwell, a resident of Anaheim Hills who opposes Measure J. “But you don’t see us stopping. We plan on going forward . . . and I think we have a good chance of defeating Measure J.”

If Measure J is approved by county voters, it will remove one of the last impediments for the county to build what both sides agree is a desperately needed new jail. Currently, more than 4,400 inmates are crammed into facilities designed to hold 3,203, and thousands of prisoners are being released every year to make room for more serious offenders.

While a majority of the supervisors have twice chosen Gypsum Canyon as the preferred site for a new jail, the financially strapped county has never been able to afford the estimated $1 billion it would cost to buy the land from the Irvine Co. and build and operate a massive new facility.

In a county where voters have proven time and again to be fiscal tightwads, the success or failure of Measure J may turn on whether voters see a new jail as essential to their safety or merely a drain on their pocketbooks.

Measure J supporters are hoping to counter the county’s spendthrift tradition with voters’ fear of crime and mayhem.

The name of the committee suggests its strategy: Headed by Gates and Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi, the Committee to Keep Criminals in Jail has already hired political consultant Eileen Padberg to run its campaign.

“I do believe people think we need to build a new jail,” Padberg said. “The question is, will they pay for it?

“It’s always tougher to get people to vote yes on something, although it’s tougher to get them to vote yes on new taxes.”

Measure J so far has been endorsed by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the head of the Orange County Gang Investigators Assn., the Costa Mesa police chief and the Santa Ana City Council. The campaign will rely on the law enforcement community to speak out about what overcrowded jails mean to a community.

Because of jail overcrowding, Gates has instituted a policy of “cite and release,” in which suspects arrested for minor crimes are booked but then released because there is no place to put them. The county has also instituted an early-release program, and together, the two policies have let about 180,000 people go prematurely since 1986.

Those trying to block efforts to build a new jail are thinking only of themselves, Measure J supporters say.

“It is such a small minority of people in this county who oppose the jail being built in Gypsum Canyon, and those are the people who are very self-interested,” Padberg said. “Sheriff Gates didn’t choose that site. A majority on the board did, and I think it’s very selfish of those people to oppose it now.”

The key to defeating Measure J, opponents say, will be in their ability to convince enough voters that they are being asked to pay higher taxes without knowing exactly how much money will be raised or what specifically it will be used for. The ballot measure, opponents point out, asks voters whether they approve of a half-cent sales tax for construction of regional justice facilities, but does not mention where those facilities would be built.

“It never even mentions the J-word--for jails,” said Rick Violett of Yorba Linda, chairman of the Taxpayers for a Centralized Jail/Citizens Against Gypsum Canyon Jail. “How do we know where this money is going to go?”

“What if they decide next year we need another half-cent tax for schools, or for a new dump?” he asked. “How many of these can voters take? Enough is enough.”

Opponents also question how much money Measure J would raise, if approved.

In their sample ballot argument in favor of the tax, supporters said Measure J would raise an average of $343 million annually. Gates has said the estimate is based on projections for Measure M, the half-cent sales tax for transportation improvements that county voters approved last November.

But opponents say early projections for Measure M--which is a 20-year tax, not a 30-year tax, as Measure J would be--show that it will not generate $343 million until its 17th year. Also, they point out, Measure J supporters have not done their own studies, so they cannot know how today’s depressed economy would affect sales-tax revenues.

“When you hit a recession like you’re in now, people stop buying things,” said Pat Pepper, chairman of the Anaheim Hills Citizens’ Coalition. “They will end up with cost overruns on their Gypsum Canyon jail, but they won’t stop building it. They’ll just come back to the taxpayers for more money.”

Measure J’s best known opponent is arguably Anaheim Mayor Fred Hunter, who authored the argument in the sample ballot opposing the measure. Instead of a jail, Hunter would much rather see the Irvine Co. build a 7,966-home community already in the planning stages called Mountain Park in Gypsum Canyon.

Plans for the development are proceeding, and Anaheim wants to eventually annex Gypsum Canyon.

Hunter said he wants to draft the support of other North Orange County cities in the battle against Measure J. The Yorba Linda City Council and the Corona City Council in Riverside County already have adopted resolutions against the measure.

Hunter said the county has not looked hard enough for ways to build a jail elsewhere.

“Why should the county and taxpayers be involved in such a grandiose billion-dollar jail in Gypsum Canyon when we can probably get private industry to build a jail for us (somewhere else)?” he said. “I think private industry could do it a lot cheaper than the government.”