Camarillo prison hospital moves forward

An open letter to Ventura County residents, released last week from the federally appointed receiver assigned to develop a healthcare facility in Camarillo for incarcerated criminals, contained one basic message:

The controversial project is going forth with all engines firing.

The Sept. 23 note, so far the only direct, formal communication J. Clark Kelso has had with members of the community, was written as a means to assuage the buildup of concern about the proposed 1,500-bed center slated for construction sometime next year.

What’s been conveyed has done little to assuage the fears of some key local officials and educators, who believe the introduction of such a large population of convicted prisoners into the fabric of the community, will turn Camarillo on its head. They feel it is completely undermining, if not eliminating entirely, the security of its largely residential neighborhoods.

According to the receiver’s plans, the facility, housed in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Ventura County site near Wright Road, will house gravely ill and elderly convicts, inmates well beyond the point of posing any major threat to the outside world.

But for Ventura County Undersheriff Craig Husband, who met with Kelso several weeks ago as a member of a special committee under the supervision of County Supervisor Kathy Long, it’s not that simple.

“My experience tells me there’ll be a range of medical issues of the people there, from persons who are basically invalid, to persons who are mobile, but have to be there for medical or psychological reasons,” the undersheriff said.

But he added, “I’m skeptical about any statement that would categorize their physical condition that prevents them from being violent. There’s nothing that can physically restrain them.”

The project, part of a comprehensive $7 billion deal to construct seven facilities across the state, was devised in response to a series of lawsuits claiming inadequate healthcare in California’s prison network, promising the utmost in security measures. Highlighted in Kelso’s letter is the intent to install a specialized electric fence around the Camarillo premises. And there’s also a low incidence of prison escapees statewide, Husband noted; the majority that do occur are in the most dilapidated of jails.

However, according to the undersheriff, the major problem originates elsewhere.

“When security breaks down is in transit,” he said.

Insecurity happens when prisoners are being transported from one destination to another: from the scene of an arrest to a sheriff’s holding cell, from there to a courthouse, or perhaps, from the Camarillo prison hospital to one of those locations, or vice versa.

The possibility of an escaped prisoner running amok in Camarillo doesn’t bode well for Dr. John Puglisi, superintendent of the Mesa Union School District in Somis, an unincorporated part of the county near Camarillo.

The district’s school, Mesa Elementary, is located just over a mile from the proposed hospital site, according to data calculated from the City of Camarillo’s Web site. The Rio Mesa High School is not much farther over the city line, in nearby

Oxnard. And residences are even closer.

“Given the nature and size of that prison hospital, … we’d really have to take a look at safety and security at our school,” Puglisi said.

One of the school’s bus routes, he explained, passes by the hospital site. And the two buildings are separated by only a single lemon orchard, a portion of which the school district, according to Puglisi, has been trying to acquire so Mesa Elementary can extend its parking lot.

“It sounds like the timing of (the hospital’s) construction is around the same time we’d be doing construction,” he said. It would situate both structures closer than before.

With the current rate of increase in criminals in the California prison system, the potential for maxing out the facility goes without saying. Undersheriff Husband estimated there are up to 70,000 people incarcerated statewide; 2,200 to 2,500 of that number come from Ventura County. There are 1,700 people countywide in custody at the moment. The facility, in relation to all this, should house only 1,500.

“We’re already overcrowded,” he said.

That was the basis of the trio of class action lawsuits filed against the state earlier in the decade, prompting the eventual establishment of the receivership position two years ago. One suit claimed that healthcare in the prison network was under par. The other two, overcrowding in the network.

Husband stressed that long term could give rise to other predicaments. What happens, he asked, if the Camarillo hospital itself becomes overcrowded? And what about security on the inside? If inmates were to assault each other, local law enforcement services could become backed up through the arrest, booking and jailing processes. Moreover, where will the money come from?

That’s one of the big worries of Kathy Long, who oversees Ventura County’s Third District.

“I think the real question,” Long said, “should be for the taxpayers. What will be the real big-ticket price on this?”

The billions planned for Kelso’s projects across the entire state apply only to the construction process, she said; no dollar amount has been assigned yet determining the ongoing upkeep of the Camarillo facility. There will undoubtedly be more concerns to resonate up and down the state, Long said.

“Clearly, there’s going to be a traffic and roadway issue,” she said.

Noting all of these concerns, yet dismissing many as unfounded, Kelso, in his 10-page statement, said a decision for a prisoners’ healthcare unit in Ventura County has to be made somewhere.

“Local opposition grounded primarily upon unsubstantiated fears and prejudices are not an appropriate basis for me to turn away from what is otherwise an attractive site,” Kelso wrote. “Moreover, there is a strong element of fairness that I must endeavor to meet. If not Ventura, then what other community should I turn to? And what do I do when that community also complains?”

Kelso’s letter, backed by comments from one of his spokespeople, also confirms that no matter what great heights Camarillo’s local fear factor reaches, there is no “Plan B,” no compromise in the pipeline, to the receiver’s all-or-nothing turnaround plan of action.

“As it stands, the turnaround plan of action is the one the judge has approved,” said Richard Stapler, a Kelso representative.

The fact that the receivership was handed down by a federal judge offers up a very gray area as to how much influence cities, counties and the state may have in halting or amending the project, according to Supervisor Long.

“I think there’s still an issue for us regarding the state rights component of a (federal) action,” she said.

The one glimmer of hope for opponents of Project Camarillo is the discovery of environmental factors that could negatively impact the area of the site. According to Stapler, the receiver’s office is in the process of preparing an

Environmental Impact Report, a document that details such impacts, and how they may be mitigated. If all goes according to schedule, he said, ground would break at the site by November 2009.