Prison Officials Study Costs to ‘Secure’ Hospital

Even as key state senators convene a public hearing this afternoon on the future of Camarillo State Hospital, state prison surveyors are studying how much it would cost to fortify the sprawling campus to hold more mentally ill criminals.

Architects from the state Department of Corrections have been sizing up the 750-acre hospital grounds at the request of state mental health officials, prisons spokesman Tipton Kindel said Thursday.

“We’ve been working with the Department of Mental Health and the Department of Developmental Services on the potential for the facility there,” he said.

“They have brought in people from the Department of Corrections to take a look [at Camarillo State] and let them know how much it might cost to provide perimeter security,” he said.

The acknowledgment Thursday came as the Senate Special Committee on Developmental Disabilities and Mental Health readies for a four-hour hearing today at the hospital.

The committee, composed of five state senators, is charged with soliciting views on Gov. Pete Wilson’s recommendation to close Camarillo State Hospital and an alternate plan to convert the hospital to a center that solely treats sexually violent and other mentally ill offenders.

Hundreds of people are expected to crowd into Haggerty Auditorium, with employees and union leaders lobbying for the conversion and some community residents arguing against bringing in potentially violent prisoners.

The final decision rests with the Legislature, which will consider the hospital’s future when it adopts a state budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

If the 60-year-old hospital is shut down, it would close before July 1997 and cost Ventura County about 1,500 jobs and $80 million in annual payroll. A detailed closure plan due to be given to legislators by Monday is expected to be released today.

Hospital employee groups have been waging a public relations campaign to convince local officials and residents that treating mentally ill criminals--so-called forensic patients--at the state hospital poses no danger to the community.

They have been collecting signatures, passing out bumper stickers and alerting merchants that their paychecks were earned at Camarillo State Hospital.

“There won’t be a backlash to the conversion. There’s a lot of community support for it right now,” said Brian Bowley, president of the local chapter of the California Assn. of Psychiatric Technicians.

“We have 6,000 signatures from people in the community who support us,” Bowley said. “We haven’t had anybody turn us down.”

But Camarillo resident Anne Williams has not signed the petition supporting efforts to keep the hospital open by stocking it with mentally ill criminals.

“The citizens in the community here do not want this kept open as a forensic facility,” said Williams, who worked two years as a jail nurse in Orange County. “We don’t want more criminals in our community.”

Camarillo residents already face potential danger from inmates at the California Youth Authority and the Ventura County work-furlough program, Williams said.

“We’ve done our part,” she said.

Since Wilson announced in January that the hospital should be closed because of a declining patient population, local politicians have been lobbying state officials to keep the facility open.

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors and the Oxnard and Camarillo city councils have gone on record supporting the recommendation to convert the hospital to a secured facility.

But the Camarillo council’s endorsement came on a 3-2 vote earlier this month--a split decision that still does not sit well with some residents.

Earlier this week, Arla B. Crane asked council members to reconsider their approval, requesting that the panel remove a clause that supports allowing sexually violent predators at the hospital.

After much discussion and public testimony late Wednesday, the council majority refused to budge.

“We made a sound decision based upon many, many people giving us sound voice,” Councilman Ken Gose said. “I would not be in favor of bringing this [issue] back.”

FYI

The Senate Special Committee on Developmental Disabilities and Mental Health will hold a public hearing on the future of Camarillo State Hospital from 1 to 4 p.m. today in Haggerty Auditorium on the hospital’s campus.