Suit Targets Sorrento Valley Work-Furlough Center

A coalition of business and property owners has filed a lawsuit seeking to block a private work-furlough center from opening in Sorrento Valley next month, arguing that the center would harm surrounding land values and jeopardize safety.

Members of SAFE, or Sorrento Against Furlough Entitlements, are seeking a temporary restraining order against the San Diego City Council, alleging that council members violated city zoning laws by approving an ordinance allowing the 438-bed correctional center on Sorrento Valley Road.

The center, to be operated by former San Diego Chargers lineman Ernest H. Wright and businessman Bill Fantozzi, is scheduled to open next month for low-risk criminals, who must pay a fee and maintain a job in order to be housed there.

Wright has said that the center, called the Sorrento Valley Counseling Complex, is to include job-training, education and counseling sessions.

Because of extreme jail crowding in San Diego County, private work furlough is used for convicts who otherwise might be released.

The centers have come under scrutiny since The Times revealed that San Diego’s facilities have minimal supervision and are not required to inform the courts if criminals violate probation.

On at least eight occasions, convicts sentenced to private work furlough have then been arrested on serious charges, ranging from drug possession to attempted murder.

Since the articles appeared, the County Board of Supervisors has ordered that contracts be signed with the city’s three private providers that would ensure proper law enforcement supervision.

Both the City Council and the California Coastal Commission approved the Sorrento Valley facility earlier this year, despite opposition from dozens of property and business owners.

An attorney for the Sorrento group said the council’s vote violates the terms of the Torrey Pines Community Plan, which calls for fostering “the development of a prestigious industrial park in Sorrento Valley.”

“The contemplated quality of use in this area is not consistent with the placement of a quasi-prison,” said attorney Charles V. Berwanger, who is representing SAFE, a nonprofit association with about a dozen members.

Without the preliminary injunction, Sorrento Valley “property values . . . will be diminished, tenants will be reluctant to renew leases (and) employee safety and morale will be jeopardized,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed last week.

In a June letter to the Coastal Commission, attorney Donald Worley, also representing the property owners, said the Sorrento Valley Industrial Park has always sought to “attract clean, environmentally sensitive industry” to the area.

“Location of a correctional facility in the middle of this high-quality industrial park will have an adverse effect on these businesses and their employees, mainly because of the perceived safety problems,” Worley wrote.

The industrial park, he said, “has no street lights and no sidewalks and precious little police patrolling, and it is totally inappropriate for any kind of high-intensity residential use, no less one which is a correctional facility.”

The assistant city attorney handling the private work-furlough issues did not return a call for comment. City Council members have said in the past, however, that all previous approvals were given legally.