Neighbors Fear Jail Expansion

They were already mad about an unwanted commercial airport.

Now comes what many residents and business owners here consider another horrifying prospect: converting the generally quiet, ranch-style James A. Musick Branch Jail into a full-scale, maximum-security jail housing dangerous felons.

“Why would you want these criminals living near you?” asked Ken Kay, 48, a 12-year resident of Serrano Park, a 17-year-old, quiet, upscale neighborhood less than a mile from the razor-wire fence that seals off the Musick honor farm. “I’d definitely consider moving.”

His neighbors and the workers in the business parks that flank the once-obscure jail near the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station at the border of Lake Forest and Irvine generally agreed Wednesday.

“The last time they talked about this [six years ago], we filled up the gym at El Toro High School,” said Laverne Loranger, 54, a 17-year neighborhood resident. “We had 1,000 people there. That ended it.”

People here seem to understand why Sheriff Brad Gates is pushing county officials to study the environmental impact of converting the 100-acre Musick camp from a working honor farm into a larger jail housing thousands of inmates.

Jail overcrowding countywide has become so bad that it forced the early releases of 13,000 inmates last year, according to county reports.

But why here, an area that has boomed with development in the past decade? many residents asked. Homes in Serrano Park now list in the $300,000 price range, and homeowners are concerned that property values will plummet and safety risks will rise.

“We are not happy at all around here,” said Denise Beever, a mother of two who lives a few blocks from Kay and Loranger. “I won’t be able to leave my garage door open again.”

She thinks she has a better idea for the jail’s future: “The land is so valuable here now, why don’t they just sell it and build their jail someplace else?”

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Lake Forest city leaders have heard the frightening figures on jail overcrowding too. They are girding for the inevitable lobbying from the sheriff and other county officials, but they are getting tired of being the venue for unpopular proposals--among them continuing plans to turn the El Toro Marine base into a large commercial airport.

“As an official, I have to be responsible and not just have a ‘not in my backyard’ attitude. But it seems we have everything in our own backyard,” said Lake Forest Councilwoman Ann Van Haun.

Van Haun also questioned the logic of building a maximum-security jail so close to homes when less populated sections of the county might be more appropriate.

“As a resident, you would prefer it not to be here,” she said. “But as an elected official, I have to deplore the fact that we are turning loose so many felons on the street. It’s quite a predicament.”

Business owner John Iest, who has felt secure in the nine months since he relocated his electronic consulting business from Laguna Hills to the eastern edge of the Irvine Spectrum, directly adjacent to Musick’s front gate, now has doubts.

“My wife and I talked about this location before we moved in,” said Iest, 52, a Mission Viejo resident and the owner of Amest Corp., a 10-employee firm he founded 20 years ago. “At first she didn’t like it at all, but I walked around the area and talked to people here, and at the time nobody seemed too concerned about it. It’s a nice area now that seems so peaceful. But all of a sudden that may be changing.”

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The Musick facility--named after the county’s first sheriff--has been operating since 1960 and is the county’s only minimum-security facility. Except for a new 10-foot security fence, it looks more like a working ranch than a jail.

Some inmates live in tents and harvest vegetables from fields, while others mow the lawns and help tend the camp’s pig farm.

The 1,000 male and 120 female inmates are nonviolent offenders who typically are drug users, burglars or parents who haven’t paid child support. They leave the jail by bus day and night to work on highway road crews and to help fight fires.

Until the new fence was constructed, inmates were simply trusted not to leave the facility, threatened otherwise with the prospect of being shipped to a stricter, higher-security facility. But there have been occasional escapes over the years.

In 1994, 11 inmates “walked off” from the jail, and at least seven escaped in 1995. But Sheriff’s Department officials say no one has left the facility so far this year.

Susan Miller, president of the Serrano Park Neighborhood Assn., said she and other residents have become fairly used to living about 1,000 yards from Musick. “The honor farm hasn’t been a major concern,” she said. Not until now.

“When you talk about a maximum-security jail, that’s a different issue,” she said.

County officials say talk of an expanded Musick facility, or perhaps another jail somewhere on the El Toro base, is only preliminary. It is still unclear how much a Musick expansion would cost, but if construction does take place, it would be at least a decade away.

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Supervisor Don Saltarelli, whose district includes most of the base and Lake Forest, said Wednesday that the commercial airport proposal could force the county to forgo the Musick expansion by making the property valuable for possible commercial development.

If the airport is built, Saltarelli said, the county might be able to sell the Musick site and use the proceeds to help fund construction of another jail, perhaps elsewhere on the base.

The environmental impact report on a Musick expansion, he added, would be just the first step in a long process.

“We would simply be studying the feasibility of it,” Saltarelli said. “It would not be a commitment to build a jail.”

But Miller seems to sum up the sentiments of many Lake Forest residents when she describes their feelings of helplessness.

“The county needs to take a good look at” this, she said. “It’s kind of to the point where everything is being rammed down the throats of Lake Forest.”

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Musick Notes

The James A. Musick Branch Jail is a low-profile, minimum-security honor farm. Here’s a look:

Opened: 1960

Size: 100 acres

Population: Approximately 1,000 men, 120 women

Inmate offenses: Nonviolent crimes such as drug use, burglary and nonsupport

Escapes: 11 in 1994; 7 in 1995; none so far this year

New escape deterrent: 10-foot fence