‘No Jail,’ Residents Say at Canyon Rally

They gathered in Weir Canyon Saturday morning with hats and T-shirts, signs and banners, all proclaiming “No Jail” as a protest of plans to put a 6,000-inmate county jail in what they described as their own backyard. They were led by two county supervisors, a couple of mayors and Anaheim Councilman Fred Hunter and his megaphone.

They were residents of Yorba Linda, Anaheim Hills, Corona and scattered nearby neighborhoods. They were angry and worried. And they hoped their two-mile march down to Gypsum-Coal Canyon, to the proposed jail site, would be only a prelude to a public protest Wednesday morning.

That’s when the Board of Supervisors is scheduled to select one of four possible sites for the new jail. The Gypsum-Coal Canyon site appears to be the board majority’s choice.

‘Lifetime Prison Term’

There were more than 500 protesters, made up of young couples, grandparents and whole families. Some pushed their babies in strollers. One woman pulled her son in his red wagon.

Bruce and Tamara Mitzner, who live just up the hill from the proposed site, brought their two dogs. Don Graham and Leroy Grunder, both businessmen from Yorba Linda, dressed in black-and-white-striped prison clothes they had rented from a costume shop, complete with plastic ball and chain. They carried a banner that read: “We Don’t Want County Supervisors to Sentence Us to a Lifetime Prison Term.”

Graham did not take kindly to any suggestion that the banner exaggerated.

“That jail would be here for the rest of our lifetime,” he said tersely.

Ten-year-old Hematon Vignale of Yorba Linda came in prison clothes, too. His 5-year-old brother Alexander packed a water jug. Their mother, Hazel Vignale, carried a sign saying she didn’t want a jail near their schools.

The protesters complained that the supervisors promised Orange County residents they would select a remote site. The protesters see nothing remote about their neighborhoods.

They have a host of fears about a jail in Gypsum Canyon: It would hurt their property values. It would also bring in drugs, unmanageable traffic and undesirable people, either jail visitors or people released from jail who might remain in the area. But a big fear is inmate escapes.

“We have enough trouble with gangs at our school. I don’t need to come home and find an escaped inmate in my living room,” said 15-year-old Phillip Traverse of Yorba Linda, who was there with his mother, Joanne.

During the walk along litter-strewn Santa Ana Canyon Road, which parallels the Riverside Freeway, they chanted “No Jail! No Jail!” and many freeway drivers honked their horns, either in support or for amusement.

‘This Remote Site’

“Hey, press,” Councilman Hunter shouted through his megaphone to the news cameramen. He pointed to a development of two dozen homes under construction on the other side of the freeway. “Look at those homes in this remote site!”

Hunter encouraged people to show up at Wednesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting. Take off work if you have to, he said. Others carried petitions for the supervisors, who have already been flooded with mail on the issue.

Supervisor Don R. Roth, walking among the throng, said he would ask the five-member board Wednesday to at least delay a site selection. He is well aware that he and Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, who represents the district where the Gypsum-Coal site is located, are probably the only two “no” votes.

“It doesn’t take a Ph.D. to count to three,” Roth said. “Gaddi and I need help.”

‘Not Complacent’

Vasquez, who couldn’t make the walk because of other commitments, but met the group at the end of the trek, applauded their efforts.

“Don’t lose your interest, don’t lose your vigor,” he told them. “You have done what is vitally important: You have shown the supervisors that Yorba Linda and East Anaheim are not complacent about this issue.”

Vasquez told reporters later that the decision probably rests with Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder, whom he sees as the possible swing vote.

“We have to broaden her consideration of the issues,” he said.

Others in the march encouraged Roth to hang tough Wednesday.

“It won’t be over even if we lose Wednesday,” he said, adding that he thought a salvo of lawsuits would be filed to try to keep the jail out.

Closed the Gate

The throng turned around at the gates to the proposed site, which a gravel company now leases from the Irvine Co. A worker closed the gates as a precaution as the marchers arrived.

“Communist!” a young girl shouted at him.

The bitterness for many of these residents stems from the fact they bought homes in the area to get out of Orange County’s urban sprawl.

“We have the hills here where we can walk with our dogs; it’s quiet, it’s a wonderful place to live,” said Tamara Mitzner. “But I couldn’t sleep for three nights when they had that escape at the Chino prison a few years ago. I just can’t live this close to a huge county jail.”

Pam Kinas, who moved to Yorba Linda in January with her husband, Mark, said she would take off work Wednesday to be at the supervisors meeting.

“I just have to,” she said. “We just can’t let this happen.”

But she posed an issue that the supervisors have been struggling with for the last few years.

“There really isn’t any place in Orange County where you can put a jail that size,” she said.