The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

The issue goes beyond Yolo County. The state Corrections Standards Authority, which oversees the siting of re-entry prisons and allocation of jail construction funds, meets Thursday in Berkeley to consider applications from a dozen counties.

Yolo officials say they plan to be there.

Phillips said rural and urban residents from throughout the county are supporting the Madison residents in their opposition.

"This is a coalition we are building," Phillips said.

The organizing meeting is scheduled for 7 tonight at the Yolo County Airport, northwest of Davis.

Meanwhile, they are talking to attorneys and looking into legal action.

Residents of Madison and nearby rural areas begged the supervisors to spare their quiet rural communities. They argued the county's farmland was no place for a prison.

Also opposing the project is the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians, which owns the Cache Creek Casino Resort on Highway 16, a main road that would run past the prison.

The tribe on Tuesday sent a letter to the Yolo supervisors asking them to take more time before selecting Madison as the prison site.

Tribal Chairman Marshall McKay wrote "to express the Tribe's concerns about the proposed placement of a prison facility in the small rural community of Madison, the gateway to the beautiful Capay Valley."

Thousands of cars headed to the tribe's casino on Highway 16 would pass by the proposed prison site. The tribe has been spending millions of dollars to create a world-class resort with golf and restaurants that serve the region's wines and organic produce.

A prison could be an uneasy fit with the tribe's vision.

But a divided Board of Supervisors OK'd the prison project, and in exchange, the state would provide $30 million to expand the county jail.

Supervisor Helen Thomson of Davis said the money was essential to provide more beds in the overcrowded Monroe Detention Center in Woodland.

Though an extremely difficult choice, she said, "it is one the board needs to make."

With a deadline looming later this week, the supervisors voted 3-1-1. Supervisors Matt Rexroad of Woodland and Mike McGowan of West Sacramento joined Thomson.

To finalize the deal, the state must sign an agreement with the county to install an additional security fence and to transport newly released inmates away from Madison.

Board Chairman Duane Chamberlain, who represents a large rural district, cast the only no vote Tuesday.

More time was needed, he said, to try to locate the prison near Woodland, West Sacramento or Davis.

"If it doesn't work, we won't do it," he said.

Supervisor Mariko Yamada of Davis abstained from the vote. She said she understood the need for the prison, but didn't think it belonged in a rural area.

The re-entry prisons, planned for 32 counties around the state, are meant to help rehabilitate offenders in their last year of prison with counseling and job training.

Reducing recidivism, building re-entry prisons and providing more jail beds are intended to alleviate severe overcrowding in the state's correctional facilities.

Last year's law that created the prisons urged that they be put in urban areas, near services and parolees' families. But the law allowed city councils to easily say no.

That has left many counties, including Yolo, struggling with where to place the prisons in order to qualify to get the state jail funds.
http://www.sacbee.com/101/v-print/story/1244200.html