Parent Complaint Halts Work of Inmates Near School : Saugus: The 14-member, supervised crew was clearing brush on a hillside adjacent to James Foster elementary.

The use of supervised state prison inmates to clear brush from a hillside surrounding a Saugus elementary school was halted after one day when a parent complained about the inmates’ presence while students were at school.

Saugus Union School District officials agreed to have a Los Angeles County Fire Department inmate crew clear the brush after nearby homeowners expressed concern about a fire hazard on the hill below James M. Foster Elementary School.

Members of the 14-inmate crew, who started the work Tuesday, are based at a camp in Acton and are assigned to work for the county Fire Department. Camp inmates are often used to help contain brush fires. They generally have been convicted of minor offenses such as drunken driving and small drug offenses, and are considered a low escape risk, said Ernie Golphenee, captain of the Acton camp.

The inmates worked during the school day but not when most students were arriving or leaving school and never went on school grounds, said Arthur Clark, assistant superintendent of business services for the school district. But he said district officials decided not to argue with the parent’s complaint.

“A fire crew could finish (the brush clearance) in another three or four days,” he said. “I only have a maintenance crew of five workers for the entire district, who I will have to take off other duties.”

Golphenee said the inmates have completed similar projects in the area before, although never next to a school. The inmates were watched by two camp supervisors and a school district employee, and Golphenee said he did not consider the inmates a threat to students.

“Within the same month we could be in the same area fighting a fire on a hillside,” he said.

Parents and grandparents with students enrolled at the school had mixed reactions to the use of the inmate crew. Pauline Adella said she saw the inmates when she picked her granddaughter up at midday Tuesday. Adella was not the parent who complained to district officials, but said she was not happy with the use of the inmates near the school.

She said the inmates were all well-disciplined, sitting down as ordered far from students, but she still doesn’t want them there. “I don’t think it should be around the school,” she said. “I don’t think the county would bring anyone out here who is dangerous, but I still object to it.”

David Herriford, a father of two boys at the school, said he is familiar with the county inmate crews and isn’t concerned with the thought of them working outside the school.

The parent’s complaint was met with anger by Jeanine Gilmore, president of the Saugus Canyon Homeowners Assn., who lives across the street from the school. She said the hillside is dangerous because numerous homes nearby have wood-shingle roofs.

“I see one kid playing with matches or a lighter every day,” she added.

Gilmore said she is writing a letter to the school district asking them to bring back the inmates. She said she has one child at the school and two others at home, and the presence of the inmates never bothered her.

“They worked hard, they did a fantastic job, they didn’t bother anyone,” she said.