Santa Ana Residents Fight Drive to Build New County Jail in Their City

Upset by a Yorba Linda group’s efforts to require that any new county jails be built in Santa Ana, a group of residents launched a counteroffensive Wednesday.

The Santa Ana Merged Society of Neighbors or SAMSON, which has been at odds with its own City Council for years, said it wants to put a city charter amendment on the June ballot in Santa Ana.

The amendment would bar city officials from approving construction of a new jail or expansion of an existing one within 2 miles of a school, public park or hospital. It also would restrict utility hookups for a jail facility. SAMSON leaders said the amendment would effectively bar building new jails or expanding existing ones in Santa Ana.

However, County Counsel Adrian Kuyper said the county “is not bound by (a city’s) building ordinances or zoning ordinances.” Kuyper said he doubted that the initiative, if passed, would have any effect on the county.

SAMSON President Harry Greenberg said the group thought the measure was legal but admitted that “there are opinions both ways.”

Greenberg criticized the Santa Ana City Council for not doing more to fight a group seeking to get a countywide initiative on the June ballot that would force any new jail to be built in Santa Ana. Kuyper said he did not know if that group’s proposed initiative is legal.

The countywide initiative is backed by Yorba Linda and Anaheim Hills residents seeking to overturn a Board of Supervisors decision to build a 6,000-inmate jail in Gypsum and Coal canyons, just south of the Riverside Freeway.

Greenberg said the proposed countywide initiative is “absurd” because it requires new jails to be built in Santa Ana. But he said the Yorba Linda and Anaheim Hills residents, like members of his group, felt “the political process has let them down.”

The Santa Ana City Council did send letters to residents alerting them to the proposed countywide initiative. City Atty. Edward J. Cooper said Wednesday that the council is barred from using city resources to fight the initiative.

Two years ago SAMSON got enough signatures to put a measure on the ballot requiring that City Council members be elected from individual wards in the city rather than citywide. Voters rejected the proposal. Greenberg said his group will have to collect 7,500 signatures from registered voters in the city by Feb. 9 to get the new measure on the ballot. Proponents of the countywide initiative need nearly 66,000 signatures to get their measure on the ballot.