Informed Opinions on Today’s Topics : Finding a Place for the Parole Office

Sherman Oaks residents have won their battle to have the San Fernando Valley parole office, which monitors more than 4,000 parolees, moved out of their neighborhood to North Hollywood. Residents, along with local politicians, objected to having the office at 5121 Van Nuys Blvd., where it has operated for a month, because it is across the street from the Van Nuys/Sherman Oaks Recreation Center. This violates state Corrections Department guidelines for placement of parole offices. However, the new North Hollywood location on Laurel Canyon Boulevard near Vanowen Street is less than a quarter-mile from the North Hollywood Park and Recreation Center.

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What should be the criteria for determining the location of a parole office?

Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn.:

“I think it must be located away from parks and other recreational facilities. Parole offices should be away from residential neighborhoods in an area where it will not cause problems. It should be located in a commercial or industrial area where the parolees will not be congregating around residential neighborhoods. . . .

“Also, the department made a big mistake in trying to centralize all the activity in one location. It should be decentralized rather than all in one major office. From the Ventura County line to Pasadena, 4,000 parolees are processed through that office.”

Don Schultz, president of the Van Nuys Homeowners Assn.:

“It should be the proximity to sensitive uses, sensitive uses being defined as churches, schools, playgrounds, parks and residential areas. It is totally inappropriate where it is right now in Sherman Oaks, near where the children and old folks are. . . . It should be brought back to the City Council in some sort of motion where the state must relinquish their right to put a parole center anywhere they want to.”

Frank Marino, field parole administrator at the San Fernando Valley Parole Office:

“Very basically, the parole office should be in the community we service but that’s becoming harder and harder. At this moment, we’re surrounded by 1,500 parolees, 1,100 of them in Van Nuys alone. . . . One of our primary considerations in choosing a location is that it’s near a main thoroughfare so the parolees don’t have to traipse through residential areas and just get right off a bus and into the parole office.

“It’s the same issue with automobiles. . . . This park (the Van Nuys/Sherman Oaks Recreation Center), prior to our arrival, has had nothing but problems. There are gangs and there was a shooting a month ago. The park was represented as a wonderful place. A park ranger told me that there’s been a lot of youth gang activity there for a long time, but those facts were never brought to the floor. . . . The park was represented as a wonderful place.”

Katharine MacDonald, spokeswoman for Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who fought to have the parole office in Sherman Oaks moved:

“The councilman particularly objects to the parole center in that (area). The park has a very active senior center with between 250 and 300 senior citizens, Little League teams and soccer games. . . . The ideal location would be a commercial, rather than a residential neighborhood.

“Another major objection was that there was no notification when the department decided to place the parole office in Sherman Oaks. You have to have community input from the homeowners and the elected officials.”