Talk of Expanding Jail Draws Ire of Neighbors

By THAO HUA and SHELBY GRAD

Oct. 13, 1996 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

LAKE FOREST —

Marcel Fernandez sees himself as a Paul Revere of sorts, alerting his neighbors to the threat of an invasion.

The James A. Musick Branch Jail has long existed near Fernandez’s neighborhood. Complete with vegetable gardens and canvas cabins, it has been home to about 1,200 nonviolent inmates. But now there is talk of expanding it to house about 7,500 criminals, many of them convicted or suspected of violent crimes.

Led by Sheriff Brad Gates, county officials say the pressing need for more jails to keep criminals off the streets requires that the Musick jail be expanded to become the largest in the county, and that it can be done without endangering nearby Lake Forest residents.

But Fernandez, who lives about 800 yards from the 100-acre, minimum-security jail, says plunking a huge maximum-security jail near homes will endanger residents and drive down property values.

Fernandez, a 53-year-old real estate broker, said he wants to be able “to light the fuse that sparks a powder keg that would blow the plan to pieces.”

Already angered over plans to convert the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station to a commercial airport, Fernandez says he and other South County residents have been hit with “a double whammy.”

“We understand that there is a desperate need for additional jail beds in Orange County,” said Richard T. Dixon, mayor of Lake Forest. “This is not a matter of whether there is a need; it’s a matter of location, location, location. We don’t feel that a jail should be located within 700 feet of a residential community.”

County officials contend that the expansion will not depress property values nor threaten public safety, and they have a 6-inch-thick environmental impact report that reaches those same conclusions.

The report also concluded that the site was the best location. The project would add more traffic to the area, but authorities said there are solutions to that problem.

The report is at the center of the conflict and will make its way to the Orange County Planning Commission on Tuesday, when the panel decides whether to ratify it. If it passes that hurdle, the report will go to the Board of Supervisors for a vote.

Even if supervisors agree to the project, construction may not begin for another three to five years, Gates said.

The county lacks the funds to expand Musick or build a previously approved addition to the Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange. The county could receive more than $50 million if voters approve a statewide jail bond measure on the November ballot, but most of that windfall would go to the Theo Lacy expansion.

“We’re reducing sentences by about 40% right now, and that’s got to stop,” Gates said. “We have a broken system, and we need to fix it and not just talk about it, for everybody’s safety.”

A report prepared by the Sheriff’s Department concluded that in 1995, 40,000 people were cited and released or had their sentences reduced because of prison overcrowding in Orange County. Of those, 882 committed new crimes during the time they would have been in jail; 25 of those crimes took place in Lake Forest and Irvine, according to the report.

Jail overcrowding has plagued the Sheriff’s Department since the 1980s, and several efforts to build the prison in other cities have been crushed, partly by public outcry.

Supervisor Don Saltarelli, whose district includes most of Lake Forest, stressed that the board will vote in November only to certify the report, not to begin construction of a new jail. Future votes would be needed to approve the construction plan and to approve funding.

“We are not building a jail at this point. That would come much later, if we can find the money,” Saltarelli said. “It’s very important to make that distinction. There is no money on the horizon at this point to build the jail at Musick. The residents need to know that.”

When the county first proposed the Theo Lacy expansion, nearby residents strongly opposed the plan and the city of Orange eventually sued to block it.

But last year, Supervisor William G. Steiner brokered a compromise that reduced the size of the project from 4,400 beds to 2,900 beds and established a variety of security measures demanded by residents.

“There needs to be some give and take to create a plan that doesn’t put the neighborhoods and residents in jeopardy,” Steiner said. “With Theo Lacy, we have an agreement that works for both sides and will help keep criminals in jail instead of on the streets.”

Saltarelli, who works in the real estate business, said he doubted an expanded Musick jail would harm nearby property values.

“I don’t think that would be the case. I don’t think that occurred at Theo Lacy,” he said. “Values go up and down with interest rates, the general economy and whether the market is good or bad.”

So far, only Supervisor Marian Bergeson has publicly opposed the environmental impact report.

She faults the report for not adequately examining alternative sites such as Santa Ana, which would be closer to the criminal courts. The report also failed to completely discuss the possibility of having a private firm operate a new jail, she said.

“I would not support this in its current form,” Bergeson said. “There is still a lot of strong opposition to it, and there needs to be more discussing about their concerns. Clearly, the cities are not satisfied.”

Paul Lanning, the report’s project manager for the county, said the report has an entire chapter on alternate sites, none of which have been dismissed. Other issues such as property values and public safety also were addressed in the report and at previous meetings, Lanning said.

“The other thing to keep in mind is that something like property value is not an environmental issue. We addressed it, but it’s not a requirement,” Lanning said. Environmental issues include air quality, noise, traffic, parking, construction materials and public safety.

In a four-page response to the report, Bergeson also expressed concerns about plans to release maximum-security inmates from the jail, which is nestled between the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, a Lake Forest neighborhood and several Irvine business parks.

Darcy Frank, whose Eastpointe Business Park’s office window overlooks the jail, said she works late at night and on weekends and has never felt that the area wasn’t safe.

“We haven’t had any problems,” Frank said. “But I’m not so sure once they expand the jail. I don’t know if I’ll work late or on weekends then. . . . That’s something I’ll definitely think twice about.”

Nearby homeowners are more vigorous in voicing their fears.

Billy Geurin, a retiree who has lived in the Serrano Park neighborhood since 1977, said, “For the life of me, I don’t understand why they don’t build up the jail in Santa Ana.”

Geurin said that would save money on staffing and transportation. “Common sense doesn’t reign” in Orange County, he said.

The retiree raised his three children in their Calle Celeste home and was looking forward to living the rest of his life in it. When he first bought his house, Musick was an honor farm where inmates raised hogs and planted corn, strawberries and greens.

The hogs, fruits and vegetables are still there, but barbed wire has been installed and the prison has been converted into a minimum-security prison for people arrested for such violations as drug use, burglary and failure to pay child support.

In 1986, an effort to expand the jail into a maximum-security prison failed after more than 3,000 residents gathered at El Toro High School to protest. County officials then proposed to build a 6,200-bed prison in Gypsum Canyon, east of Anaheim, but that plan failed as well.

“For the last 22 years I’ve been sheriff, every time we’ve proposed a jail anywhere, we get that not-in-my-backyard response,” Gates said. “‘And we need to get beyond that response. We need to be thinking about the good of the whole.”

Chuck Evans says the good of the whole doesn’t have to be at his cost. The 39-year-old lighting consultant saved his money for years before buying his first house in the Serrano Park neighborhood about two years ago.

“I’ve painted the inside and done the front landscaping. I’ll be doing the backyard landscaping,” Evans said. “This is my first home, so you know, I want to take care of it.”

But faced with proposed plans for an El Toro airport and Musick, he is considering selling the two-story home before property values take a dramatic dip.

“I think the county is kind of abusing our neighborhood here.”

* LAND DEAL

Some officials fear cleanup costs of farmland for sale near the jail. B6

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Facing the Musick

A plan to expand the James A. Musick Branch Jail and change the inmate mix to include violent offenders pits some South County residents against the county. Here’s a look at the jail and how an expanded one would compare in size to other jails:

James A. Musick Branch Jail

Opened: 1960

Size: 100 acres

Population: 1,000 men, 120 women

Inmate offenses: Nonviolent crimes such as drug use, burglary and failure to pay child support.

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

New escape deterrent: 10-foot fence

Jail Capacity

An expanded Musick jail could make it the biggest detention facility in the county. The comparison in number of beds:

Peter Pitchess Jail, Los Angeles County: 8,500

Expanded James A. Musick Branch Jail: Up to 7,500*

“Twin Towers” Jail, Los Angeles County: 4,100