Plans dropped for Madison re-entry prison

Issue Date: May 13, 2009

By Christine Souza
Assistant Editor

A large sign placed beside a rural road in Yolo County expressed the feeling of area residents about a proposed plan to construct a re-entry prison facility near the town of Madison.

Due to the uncertainty of receiving funding from the state, pressure from rural residents and a lawsuit brought on behalf of the Yolo County Farm Bureau, the Yolo County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to back out of a contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to build a "re-entry facility" for inmates awaiting release from prison on agricultural land.

The decision comes as a relief to area farmers, who have been opposed to the idea since late last year when the Yolo County Board of Supervisors initially voted to approve construction of the prison on a 15-acre block of farmland near the town of Madison.

"Most of the farmers and landowners in this part of the county are relieved to see that the supervisors aren't going to pursue this further. We just thought all along that this is a totally inappropriate use of a rural area like this," said Yolo County farmer Bruce Rominger. "This is taking ag land and just compounding the problem of more development pressure in this rural area that doesn't have the infrastructure. It wasn't a good idea from the beginning."

Yolo County Farm Bureau President Tim Miramontes explained that problems related to the development of infrastructure such as flood control and other water issues on prime farmland were just some of the obstacles that would need to be dealt with prior to the prison's construction.

"Madison is a very small farm community whose residents are mainly farm employees. The county put the re-entry facility right next to a farm labor camp without the basic infrastructure needed to support such a large project," Miramontes said. "The board of supervisors is just looking for money. The county saw the $30 million that would rebuild their existing jail and decided to build the state prison project in the area where there is the least resistance and that happened to be agriculture."

While landowners are pleased with the victory, a lawsuit brought by the Yolo County Farm Bureau against Yolo County remains on the table. The Yolo County Farm Bureau sued to block approval of the prison because it charged that Yolo County did not provide an environmental review or abide by its own general plan.

Yolo County Farm Bureau's lawsuit alleges the proposed prison will have a significant environmental impact on farmland, but that Yolo County failed to conduct a required environmental review before approving the prison site. The lawsuit says that the prison plan violates the Yolo County general plan, under which the county pledges to protect agricultural land and discourage urban sprawl. The action further states that Yolo County violated the farmland-conservation law known as the Williamson Act by failing to notify the state of plans to build a prison within an agricultural preserve. California Farm Bureau Federation represents Yolo County Farm Bureau in the case.

"We sued to overturn the county's decision on numerous grounds. They didn't do any environmental review, it was inconsistent with the county general plan and it violated the Williamson Act," said John Weech, associate counsel of the California Farm Bureau Federation's Natural Resources and Environmental Division. "The problem is that the county signed an agreement with the state that basically says if the state wants this site, they've got it. The county committed this piece of property to the state without taking the time to address all of these critical issues."

While the recent vote by the Yolo County Board of Supervisors revokes their decision to site the re-entry facility near Madison, Weech said that the Farm Bureau's litigation with Yolo County remains ongoing. CFBF is waiting for the state's official reaction to the county's vote before knowing the effect on the lawsuit.

"The actions by the Yolo County Board of Supervisors in voting to withdraw from this project have greatly increased the chances of resolving this lawsuit prior to trial," Weech said.

Yolo County's decision to seek a site for a re-entry prison stems from funds offered to the county under Assembly Bill 900, enacted in 2007, which appropriates $1.3 billion in jail construction funding through state lease-revenue bonds. The county hoped to qualify for $30 million in jail-improvement money by allowing the state to build the re-entry prison in the county.

Yolo County supervisor and farmer Duane Chamberlain, who is opposed to the construction of the prison near Madison, said budgetary issues at both the state and county levels are a real problem for the project, not to mention the fact that rural residents don't want the re-entry facility to be sited on the farmland near Madison. Yolo County supervisors voted 5-0 to back out of the Madison prison project.

"The state is so broke, they can't do anything and the county is in a financial mess. If they did build the extension to our jail, they wouldn't have anybody to work there because they are already laying off a lot of people," Chamberlain said. "And I think the resistance from the local people certainly had something to do with it, a lot to do with it."

Soon after Yolo County approved construction of the prison, a grassroots organization of community members called Save Rural Yolo County formed to fight the proposed prison being built near Madison, or any other rural area of the county.

Although Yolo County signed a contract to build the prison, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Seth Unger said, "I don't foresee us going forward against the wishes of the Board of Supervisors and of Yolo County.

"They have signed an agreement, but there has always been implicitly and included in the legislation that authorizes re-entry, an understanding that these facilities would only be built in counties that expressly were interested," Unger said.

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is currently working with 10 other counties interested in taking advantage of AB 900 funds for improvements to existing county prisons, as well as new construction for re-entry facilities.

(Christine Souza is an assistant editor of Ag Alert. She may be contacted at csouza@cfbf.com.)

Permission for use is granted, however, credit must be made to the California Farm Bureau Federation when reprinting this item. Top