Plan to Build L.A. Prison Reconsidered : Legislation: Wilson is studying a proposal to drop the project. In return, lawmakers would provide funds for three new prisons and opening of Lancaster facility.

Weighing a major policy shift, the Wilson Administration is considering a proposal by Latino lawmakers to drop plans for a controversial state prison on the eastern edge of downtown Los Angeles.

As their part of the bargain, lawmakers would be required to win passage of legislation to build three prisons and earmark $30 million for the immediate opening of a nearly finished facility in the Antelope Valley city of Lancaster.

If Gov. Pete Wilson agrees, the deal would shatter a 1987 “share the pain” legislative compromise that linked construction of a prison in a heavily Democratic area of Los Angeles to the opening of a prison in predominantly Republican Lancaster.

In what has become an almost annual legislative ritual, Los Angeles lawmakers have unsuccessfully sought to block construction funds for the Los Angeles prison. But last week prison opponents persuaded the Latino Legislative Caucus to make another pitch to block the prison and the Wilson Administration--facing a major budget crisis--was willing to listen.

“The bottom line is that the proposal is under consideration,” said Craig Brown, undersecretary of the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency. He cautioned that the Administration has not entered into an agreement but is merely talking about the proposal.

In an interview Wednesday, Brown cited several potential stumbling blocks, most significantly whether the financially strapped state can find an extra $30 million to open the Lancaster prison built at a cost of $207 million to relieve crowding at other prisons. When last assessed, it was expected to remain empty until late next year because of the lack of operating funds.

Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), who as chairman of the Latino Legislative Caucus is advocating the proposal, said he was hopeful that Wilson would agree to the plan because it would provide a net gain of 5,000 beds while shelving plans for the $147-million Los Angeles prison.

The Los Angeles prison has been bitterly opposed by Eastside community residents since it was proposed in 1985 by former Gov. George Deukmejian. He argued that Los Angeles County, the source of nearly 40% of the state’s prisoners, should have a state prison.

But opponents have felt a renewed urgency to battle the prison in the wake of last month’s state Supreme Court decision that removed the final legal hurdle to construction of the facility on a 20-acre site southeast of downtown near 12th Street and Santa Fe Avenue.

An estimated $40 million has already been spent to buy the Los Angeles site and develop plans for the prison.

Brown said the fresh proposal would divert bond funds earmarked to build the Los Angeles prison to start construction of three prisons near existing prisons at Susanville, Madera and Soledad. It would also allow the state to issue more bonds to finish the construction and pinpoint funds to open the Lancaster facility.

In an interview, Polanco maintained that construction of the Los Angeles prison, a 1,400-bed reception center where inmates would be brought for assignment, is not as high a priority for the state as in the 1980s.

Polanco provided a crucial vote that breathed life into the Los Angeles prison just hours after he was sworn into office in 1986. But he said he has opposed the prison since then and maintained that no more state prison funds should be spent in the downtown area because there is “an over-saturation and concentration” of federal and local prisons and jails in the area.

Polanco also noted that the 2,200-bed Lancaster prison is almost completed, meaning that Los Angeles County soon will have a prison ready to open its doors--one of Deukmejian’s original goals.

Frank Villalobos, chairman of the Coalition Against the Prison in East Los Angeles, said the state “cannot substantiate the need to build more prisons.” Villalobos, who came to Sacramento last week, said that against the backdrop of the state budget crisis, “I think it’s a matter of logic. The state of California (has) an urgent need to be more prudent.”

But Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside), the legislative architect of the Los Angeles-Lancaster prison agreement, said he would oppose reopening the prison issue. The bargain was hammered out, he said, to “balance out one (prison) in a rural area and one in an urban area.”