Supervisors Bail Themselves Out of Canyon Jail Corner

Sheriff Brad Gates is curious.

Supervisor Roger Stanton is dismayed.

Supervisor Tom Riley is shocked.

Dan Wooldridge, aide to supervisor Don Roth, is baffled.

Santa Ana Mayor Dan Young is depressed.

With bad vibes like that floating around, we must be talking about the Orange County Jail problem.

The latest chapter in the story that goes on longer and has more characters than a Russian novel came this week when Supervisors Riley and Harriett Wieder appeared to back off in their longtime support of Gypsum Canyon as the site of a future jail.

County voters in May clobbered a proposal to pay for that jail with a half-cent sales tax increase, but staunch Gypsum Canyon supporters Gates and Stanton saw no reason to remove the canyon site from all future consideration. To that end, county Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove) got a bill through the Legislature that would have made condemning the site attainable with a simple three-vote majority on the five-member board.

Riley and Wieder were supposed to be Votes 2 and 3. With their possible defection, Stanton, who appreciates a good football metaphor, now must feel like the quarterback running a naked reverse that’s been sniffed out by the other team.

Similarly, the Wieder-Riley shuffle has now given Gov. Pete Wilson a perfectly good excuse for vetoing Umberg’s bill.

After hearing of Riley and Wieder’s comments, Gates said Wednesday: “It makes me wonder what kind of politics are going on here. I’m very curious this morning about who’s behind all this.”

Stanton singled out Wieder for most of his consternation, saying she had been more definite about her flagging support than was Riley.

“What’s unfortunate about Supervisor Wieder’s remarks is that it kind of makes the issue of whether the governor would or would not sign the Umberg bill a moot question,” Stanton said. “The timing of her remarks are exceedingly poor. My position is if you have an option, regardless of the degree of viability of that option, and you have no other options whatsoever, why cut it off until you get some other options?”

Mayor Young, another Gypsum supporter, agreed. “I don’t know why they (Riley and Wieder) said what they said,” he said. “There’s no reason to bail out on it (Gypsum Canyon site), for several reasons.”

New revenue sources may open up in the future, and revisions of the jail’s original size might make it more palatable to area residents, Young said.

Wieder was out of town Thursday, but she said Wednesday that new figures on the cost of operating even a jail smaller than originally planned led her to rethink her earlier support.

“The time has come to stop spinning our wheels. We’d better start looking at other options,” she said.

Riley couldn’t be reached, but aide Marilyn Brewer said the supervisor had not totally foreclosed on Gypsum Canyon.

However, despite Stanton’s hopeful spin on Riley’s position, Brewer didn’t sound much more encouraging about Riley’s future support than did Wieder.

Riley had already been quoted Tuesday as saying he “was shocked by the numbers,” meaning the $119-million annual price tag of operating a jail in Gypsum Canyon.

Brewer said Riley’s support for a Gypsum Canyon site has also been affected by the county’s recent budget agonies, the state sales-tax increase and the ringing defeat in May of the local sales-tax increase.

And if only to smoosh the pie deeper into Stanton’s face, Brewer added: “When you talk dollars and cents, it (Gypsum Canyon jail) has never looked favorable. The money, in reality, was never really there.”

All of which should make Wooldridge happy. As an aide to Supervisor Roth, a staunch Gypsum Canyon opponent, you would think that Wieder’s and Riley’s wobbling would have prompted a party. Rather, Wooldridge was taking exception to what he said were Gates’ hints about placing maximum-security inmates at the Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange.

“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Wooldridge said. “I don’t go around saying negative things about the sheriff, but I’m baffled, absolutely baffled about his public comments.”

Wooldridge said residents around the Lacy jail have been promised over the years that no maximum-security inmates will be housed there.

There you have it, loyal reader--the update from the jail front.

By now, you’re probably thoroughly curious, dismayed, shocked, baffled and depressed yourself.

You’re not the only one. And let me add peeved.

Just a few months ago, Wieder and Riley were firmly behind the Gypsum Canyon site, asking us to spend another half-cent in sales tax for the next 30 years to support it. You have to ask yourself how strong their support really was.

As recently as Aug. 14, Riley joined the once-solid, three-vote majority to sue Anaheim as part of an effort to keep the Gypsum Canyon site open.

Then Riley said: “This is the land we have planned on. Another site just hasn’t jumped out at us, and we need to keep the pressure on.”

Some pressure. It’s the same kind of pressure that has kept the county’s unresolved jail problems comfortably afloat well into their second decade.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.