A Pardon from Prison Gridlock : Wilson should sign a bill to end the agony over East L.A. prison proposal

Gov. Pete Wilson can finally end a long, messy--and probably unnecessary--battle over a state prison in downtown Los Angeles if he signs a bill sent to him late Monday by the Legislature.

Senate Bill 97 is an omnibus measure that includes funding authorization to operate various state prisons. But most significantly for residents of Los Angeles’ largely Latino Eastside, it also eliminates funds to build a state prison planned for a site just southeast of downtown.

The bill’s author, Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles), happens to represent the area, so he knows firsthand just how deep grass-roots feelings there run against the state prison project. Eastside residents contend there are already too many city, county and even federal prisons in their part of town.

Fierce community opposition is just one reason the Los Angeles prison project has been a costly political headache for Sacramento almost from the moment it was first announced, back in 1985. The most recent construction estimates run about $147 million and are likely to rise further as lawsuits against the project are filed.

The reason Wilson, and before him Gov. George Deukmejian, pushed forward with the prison plan despite community opposition is because California badly needs prison space--the corrections system is currently running at 175% of capacity. Additionally, Deukmejian argued that since a third of state prison inmates come from Los Angeles, there should be a prison in this county. The deal he reached with the Legislature was to build two prisons, one near downtown and one in the north county’s rural Antelope Valley. The second prison, in Lancaster, has already been built but stands empty awaiting construction of the downtown prison, still bogged down in legal wrangling.

So Torres and other Latino legislators came up with compromise plan that kills the downtown prison and instead increases funds to expand existing prisons in other parts of the state, and provides added money to open new prisons, including $29 million for the empty Antelope Valley facility. It’s a reasonable solution to a standoff that’s gone on too long. Wilson should take the deal.