2 Lawsuits to Halt Jail Are Rejected : Santa Paula: Citizens to Save the Greenbelt plan to appeal. Legal wrangles over the facility began two years ago.

Opponents of a new Ventura County jail under construction near Santa Paula have suffered a double setback as Superior Court judges in two separate cases tossed out their lawsuits aimed at halting construction of the $53-million facility.

But representatives from Citizens to Save the Greenbelt said they have no intention of quitting, and plan to appeal the decisions.

“We’re in limbo right now,” said Ken Chapman, a neighbor of the jail and president of the group. “I haven’t had time to review the cases with our attorney, but I don’t hear the fat lady singing yet. We can still appeal.”

Officials from the county have called the lawsuits “frivolous” and were pleased by the judges’ rulings.

“Basically the judges said, ‘You have no case,”’ said Art Goulet, director of the county’s Public Works Department. “But it ain’t over until it’s over, and they have 60 days to appeal.”

Legal wrangling between the group and the county has gone on for nearly two years, as opponents of the planned jail--being constructed on 152 acres of prime farmland in the greenbelt between Ventura and Santa Paula--search for ways to stop its construction. Before the greenbelt group filed its lawsuit, the city of Santa Paula spent more than $50,000 in a failed legal challenge to the jail.

Chapman said the two rulings issued earlier this month were based mostly on procedural grounds, such as missed court deadlines.

But county officials said Santa Barbara Superior Court Judge Royce Lewellen also indicated in his Dec. 3 ruling that even if the group had met the deadlines, the facts in the case did not support halting the project.

In one instance, said Frank Sieh, the county counsel’s litigation officer, the group contended that the use of a dry riverbed as a construction route violated terms outlined in the project’s Environmental Impact Report.

But the judge ruled that the legal point was moot because construction crews were no longer using the riverbed and the route had already been restored to its pre-construction condition, Sieh said.

In the other case, a Superior Court judge in Los Angeles on Dec. 17 also dismissed a lawsuit filed against the state Department of Fish and Game, which claimed state officials failed to enforce rules to protect wetlands.

Chapman conceded that the first phase of the jail cannot be stopped at this point. But he said the group still hopes to block future construction phases that would expand the facility to hold more than 2,000 prisoners.

“We think the county gave the EIR short shrift,” Chapman said. “They’re overloading the site and will eventually triple the number of beds out there and that’s too much.”

County officials said they have followed all environmental rules and that the group has repeatedly failed to prove its case.

In July, 1992, the group was denied a petition to halt construction by a Ventura County judge while its lawsuit was pending. A similar ruling was issued earlier this year after the group claimed that bald eagles were nesting in a lemon grove on the site and steelhead trout used a seasonal stream that runs through the site for spawning.

Rosemary Woodlock, attorney for the greenbelt group, said she did not plan to give up on the case. “This is by no means the end of the road,” she said.

Officials predict that the jail will be nearly complete by July of next year and ready for inmates in January, 1995.