Closures May Be the Most Severe in Outlying Areas

As more specific details of the Los Angeles County budget cuts began to emerge Thursday, it became increasingly clear that the suburban and rural fringes of the county could suffer the most as satellite offices and services are scaled back or closed.

Proposed closures in the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys include the swimming beach at Castaic Lake, a mountain fire station near Calabasas and the Mira Loma Jail in Lancaster.

The impact of service reductions may be particularly noticeable in the northern part of the county, where services already lag far behind the needs of the rapidly growing region.

“We have been trying over the years to bring the services out there,” said Supervisor Ed Edelman, who represents most of the San Fernando Valley. “Now, with the budget cuts, we’re seeing everything we’ve worked to achieve being reversed.”

Edelman said he would try to find ways to preserve some of the region’s services, but acknowledged that many of the proposed cuts are inevitable. The latest proposal, recommended by the county’s chief administrative officer, Richard B. Dixon, after consultation with department administrators, will be reviewed by supervisors beginning Tuesday when budget hearings resume.

County department administrators expressed dissatisfaction Thursday with Dixon’s suggestions, but acknowledged that in the present budget climate it has become tougher and tougher to find alternatives.

Fire Chief Michael Freeman, for instance, said he will work hard not to close Fire Station 67 in the Santa Monica Mountains above Calabasas.

“It’s not--certainly not--in concrete yet,” Freeman said. “But we’re against the wall here. We don’t have a lot of slippage.”

Freeman is also opposed to Dixon’s plan to carve away seven of 10 remaining fire patrols, which protect wild land areas in the Santa Clarita, Antelope and east San Gabriel valleys. The patrols operate small trucks equipped with water and hoses, which Freeman said are particularly crucial in fighting hard-to-reach brush fires.

Cutting the patrols would mean laying off the 21 firefighters assigned to that detail, Freeman said, saving nearly $1.7 million this year.

Also slated for closure are all 13 “area district attorney offices,” situated in stand-alone municipal courts throughout the county. Included are offices in the Newhall and Glendale courts.

Without the offices, witnesses and law enforcement officers involved in filing cases in those courts would have to travel to the next nearest offices, in San Fernando and Pasadena, respectively, district attorney’s spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said.

“That takes manpower, that could be used for fighting crime, off the streets,” she said.

The accompanying loss of 127 prosecutorial staff members throughout the county could lead to frequent trial delays and more case dismissals in those courts, Gregory Thompson, chief deputy district attorney, said.

“This is actually passing the pain from the district attorney’s office to the local police and the local community,” Thompson said.

Other proposed cuts that would particularly impact the northern part of the county include:

* Closure of the 1,900-bed Mira Loma Jail in Lancaster and a reduction of more than 2,000 beds at the Peter J. Pitchess jail near Magic Mountain. The two facilities now routinely operate over capacity. The budget proposal calls for the sheriff to reduce the size of the jail population by releasing more inmates before their sentences are up.

Sgt. Larry Lincoln said deputies are “keeping our fingers crossed” that the jail closures will not be carried out.

Dixon also proposed closing the Malibu Sheriff’s Station and transferring responsibility for that rugged and spread-out area to the Lost Hills Station.

* Although three community health clinics tentatively slated for closure--Canoga Park, North Hollywood and Valencia--would remain open under Dixon’s proposal, all would reduce hours of operation.

Also, the popular San Fernando Health Center, along with six other centers around the county, would no longer treat routine illnesses. The centers would provide immunizations, family planning, prenatal care and treatment of communicable diseases such as tuberculosis. Most sick people would be referred to the larger Mid-Valley clinic in Van Nuys or to Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar.

The elimination of sick care from those six clinics would save an estimated $5.8 million this year. It would mark the end of basic health care in the community clinics, because the remainder of the 34 clinics already had phased it out in recent years.

* Olive View Medical Center, in turn, would lose nearly half of its 57 psychiatric beds and its outpatient, non-emergency clinic hours would be cut by 25%. The dental service would be hurt the most, according to hospital Administrator Douglas Bagley. With only one of two dentists and no hygienist remaining, only about 96 dental patients could be seen annually.

“For some patients who now use county services, there just won’t be any other alternatives,” Bagley said.

* Swimming beaches at Castaic Regional Park and at Bonelli Regional Park in San Dimas would close permanently, for a combined savings of $774,000. Grounds maintenance at those and other county regional parks also would be sliced.

Because of low water levels caused by the drought, the county has had chronic problems with contaminated water at the two lakes and had to limit use and close them completely to swimmers in August. The Castaic park, however, attracted at least 5,000 beach-goers a day throughout most of the summer, said Tony Yakimowich, budget chief for the county Department of Parks and Recreation.

* The county coroner’s “scene response” staff would be cut by five people, a loss of nearly 10% of that division. Coroner’s administrators said that cutback would particularly affect response time for investigators and mortuary attendants in the northern part of the county, and could delay release of bodies to families.

* The Regional Planning Department would lose 10% of its staff, resulting in longer delays in reviews of environmental impact reports, applications for zone changes and conditional use permits.