Conservation Corps May Relocate Camp to Julian

The county’s California Conservation Corps base camp would be moved from Escondido to Julian under a state money-saving proposal, much to the dismay of Escondido officials and community activists.

Under the plan, $150,000 would be cut by relocating the base from Deer Park in northern Escondido to Julian in the eastern end of the county, Dick Bernheimer, interim director of the California Conservation Corps, told the corps’ local community advisory board Tuesday. The state would save the money by giving up the lease in Deer Park and moving to a spot in Julian with reduced rent.

In Julian, the corps members would mainly serve as firefighters with the state Department of Forestry, replacing County Jail inmates who helped fight fires until last fall when the county axed the program as part of budget reductions, Bernheimer said.

The Escondido facility is the only corps base camp in the county, housing about 64 corps members from 18 to 23 years old. A satellite program in San Diego employs 34 people but does not serve as a base camp residence for workers. The corps is a program in which young adults work at conserving an area’s environment with projects such as recycling, clearing trails, developing parks and lending a hand in irrigation projects.

The new state proposal would use some of the savings from the base camp relocation for hiring up to 30 more corps members in North County, but not on a residency status, Bernheimer said.

“We would establish a new satellite in the Escondido area, so we would end up with three facilities instead of two,” Bernheimer said. “There might be a small loss of (work) hours in the Escondido area, but in the county as a whole . . . the greater San Diego area will benefit.”

However, officials of several North County cities have balked at relocating the base.

“We’re not very happy about it,” said Dan Cannon, parks director for the city of Poway.

“The CCC does large cleanup type programs, they work with the California Department of Fish and Game developing different types of wildlife habitat, brush cleanup for trying to protect watersheds and those types of projects,” he said.

Last year, Poway used more than 20,000 hours of corps support for parks and trails development and maintenance. “They’ve constructed and developed probably about 25 miles of trails in the city of Poway alone,” Cannon said.

Escondido is also protesting the move, and Frank Schmitz, the city’s manager of lakes and maintenance, said “being in Escondido and Deer Park, they were in an area where we could better prepare them to go out into the job market and compete with everyone else.”

The program helps workers, many of whom have not completed high school, get a school diploma or equivalent and teaches them a trade, said Rosalia Atilano-Harper, executive chair of the corps’ local advisory board.

“They teach kids discipline, a trade, and if they have not received a high school diploma, it’s a must of the program that they get a General Education Diploma,” Atilano-Harper said.

Atilano-Harper said that replacing the base camp with a non-resident satellite program would bring a dramatic reduction in services.

“Not only are they available for various (paid) projects, but they also provide community volunteer work to the local communities,” she said, citing the corps’ support of I Love a Clean San Diego and the Escondido Community Clinic, where workers provided the labor to landscape and irrigate the medical center.

Moving to Julian, “they won’t be close enough so they can be called in for emergencies,” Atilano-Harper said.

Also, a volunteer network of teachers and other professionals that was established to help provide guidance to corps workers would not be available for corps members in Julian, Atilano-Harper said.

Atilano-Harper’s board has invited local elected and city officials to a Friday forum to line up additional support for keeping the base camp in its existing location, Atilano-Harper said.

“We’d like to have our elected officials at all levels of government support our efforts to keep things the way they are now,” Atilano-Harper said.

The final decision on relocating the base camp will be made within the next 10 days, Bernheimer said, although some believe the project is virtually approved.

If the program goes as scheduled, the move would take place in time for the new fire season that begins in May, Bernheimer said.