New Parole Office to Be Moved : Activism: Community and political pressure forces state to close Sherman Oaks facility after less than a month. A North Hollywood office will reopen.

Bowing to pressure from an influential Sherman Oaks homeowners group and local politicians, state officials announced Wednesday that they will move a parole office they had opened there less than one month ago.

Opponents had argued that opening the parole office in a building at 5121 Van Nuys Blvd., directly across the street from a park, is a violation of the state Corrections Department’s own guidelines.

The Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. praised the announcement that the office will be moved, but residents of Van Nuys and North Hollywood bitterly criticized the decision. They complained that parole offices in their less-affluent neighborhoods never generated the same swift political response.

“Is it right to introduce the fox to the henhouse in some other area?” Van Nuys activist Candace Campbell asked elected officials during a news conference at the Van Nuys/Sherman Oaks Recreation Center.

Other angry residents carried signs that said: “Stop Dumping in Van Nuys” and “Van Nuys Residents Also Vote.”

The Corrections Department had operated parole offices in Van Nuys and North Hollywood. The Van Nuys office will remain closed, officials said, but the North Hollywood office, near Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Vanowen Street, will reopen.

Both older facilities had become overcrowded and were closed in favor of the larger, single office in Sherman Oaks, meant to monitor about 4,100 felons who served time in state prison and now live in the Valley.

Although the Corrections Department has a policy of not placing parole offices near schools and parks, the Van Nuys/Sherman Oaks Recreation Center is across the street from the new office. Officials settled on the three-story building because it was the only lease they could secure after a two-year search, Corrections Director James Gomez said.

But the choice generated controversy soon after the office opened April 25 when residents started phoning police and politicians to express fears that seasoned criminals would loiter around the office and prey upon children and senior citizens using the park.

About 15% to 20% of California’s paroled felons are rearrested, prosecuted and returned to state prisons, and law enforcement authorities say there is a significant overlap between neighborhoods plagued by high crime rates and those where parolees congregate.

Nonetheless, the parole offices that had operated in Van Nuys and North Hollywood for five and 10 years, respectively, did so virtually without notice by residents and generated no complaints, said regional parole administrator Jerry DiMaggio.

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Moreover, no known crimes or other problems were attributed to the new office in Sherman Oaks during its 3 1/2-week life, DiMaggio and other officials said.

“There’s really no foundation for the hysteria,” DiMaggio said.

Those who led the effort to have the parole office moved--homeowners association President Richard Close, City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, state Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) and Assemblywoman Barbara Friedman (D-North Hollywood)--credited each other for a response they described as unprecedented in terms of speed.

“In my 19 years of activism, I’ve never seen such fast work by government officials,” Close said.

The outcry prompted Friedman and Roberti to introduce legislation requiring the Corrections Department to be more specific when it notifies elected officials about plans for a new parole office.