Expensive Lesson for Oxnard

Call it the million-dollar oops.

That’s how much the city of Oxnard has agreed to pay Cornell Corrections Inc. to get it to go somewhere else with its plans for a halfway house for prisoners awaiting parole. The firm had been within days of moving inmates into its two-story, 40-bed facility at 435 South D Street when area residents got wind of the new addition to the neighborhood and raised a ruckus.

It seems the city had approved a special-use permit for the halfway house before residents demanded a public hearing. They said such a facility has no business locating in a residential area less than a block from an elementary school and near downtown. Oxnard planning commissioners and City Council members have said city staff should not have granted Cornell the permit without their approval.

Last week, the city agreed to pay Cornell $1 million to compensate for its investment--that’s $700,000 to buy the building and land, plus $300,000 for improvements the private corrections firm had made. The deal sets a deadline of today for Cornell to clear out--and includes a promise by the firm and the state Department of Corrections not to sue the city.

That’s because the mix-up forces Cornell to forfeit a $3-million contract with the state, although it can reapply to open a similar facility if it can find a receptive neighborhood.

We acknowledge that there is a need for this type of facility to help prisoners ease their way back into life on the outside, and we appreciate the reluctance any neighborhood would naturally feel about having one nearby. Cornell officials should have had the opportunity to make their case and respond to neighbors’ concerns forthrightly in an open forum.

City officials should have known better than to let something so obviously controversial go as far as it did without a public hearing. Public officials are not on the payroll to sneak unpleasant surprises into our neighborhoods.

Whatever governments do must be done in the open. It’s an expensive lesson for Oxnard--one we hope won’t be lost on public officials all over Ventura County.