Posted on 05/21/2005 5:18:11 PM PDT by calcowgirl
SAN QUENTIN – Maligning San Quentin State Prison as "an expensive mistake," two state politicians this week urged officials to shutter the aging facility to save cash-strapped California millions of dollars.
They also urged the state to back away from a plan to spend $220 million to improve the prison's death row facility. The California Department of Corrections is scheduled to break ground on a new death row this fall on 40 acres west of the existing prison on the San Francisco Bay in scenic Marin County.
The legislators support a bill set to go before the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Wednesday that would allow the transfer of San Quentin's 600 death row inmates to other prisons while they are going through their appeals.
The notorious prison, which has an operating budget of $120 million per year, includes California's only gas chamber and death row for all male condemned inmates. Scott Peterson, convicted of murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, and the fetus she carried, is in San Quentin's intake unit awaiting his transfer to death row.
"It's old, rundown and unsafe," state Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced, said Friday at a press conference with Assemblyman Joe Nation, D-San Rafael. "To continue to spend money to retrofit it and expand it when we could be spending that money elsewhere is ridiculous."
Nation said operating the 153-year-old prison costs at least $25 million per year more than similar facilities statewide.
"Gov. (Ronald) Reagan in the late 1960s first proposed shutting it down, but it was never acted on," Nation said. "Let's not make the same expensive mistake."
Both men emphasized that their efforts to close the prison were attempts to save taxpayers' money; they didn't necessarily want to use the 432-acre prime waterfront property, which features stunning views of San Francisco Bay – for luxury housing.
Some Marin County land developers and politicians are hoping to convert the site to a regional public transit hub, ferry port or housing. The land is worth at least $750 million at market rates, according to an analysis last year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's California Performance Review.
Last month, a team of medical experts reported that conditions at San Quentin were so appalling that it was dangerous to house new and sick inmates there. The team said prison administrators failed to comply with a court order requiring improvements in medical care.
"We found a facility so old, antiquated, dirty, poorly staffed, poorly maintained, with inadequate medical space and equipment and overcrowded that it is our opinion that it is dangerous to house people there with certain medical conditions and is also dangerous to use this facility as an intake facility," the four national experts reported. "In summary, San Quentin should be viewed as needing to start from the beginning."
The land is worth at least $750 million at market rates...
Sounds a bit low.
Seems to me that now is not the time to be closing prisons. We don't have enough prison space as it is.
send them to gitmo
"It's old, rundown and unsafe,"
God forbid that any of those persons on death row be killed in an earthquake before all of their appeals are done with/sarcasm
Let's see... they've invoked Reagan's name, denied that closing SQ has anything to do with aquiring that prime waterfront real estate for another use, had a team of experts declare it unsafe; and lacking necessary medical facilities...
no agenda here...hidden or otherwise... just saving us taxpayers money. /sarcasm
How 'bout they bunk up over the legislators' garages?
Why should it be used for a public transit facility that could be put anywhere on non prime real estate. That's just as bad as having a prison there. Only a politician could think of such a thing. Any time the government starts talking about building housing they usually mean low end housing for welfare recipients. The only difference between that and a prison is the lack of bars on the windows. Why not auction the land off to the highest bidder?
Some of the things that stuck with me (probably standard prison practice, but interesting anyway):
There, now it's correct.
I say transfer them to a Mexican jail where we pay about a dollar a day for board and keep and let New York Times reporters interview serial murderders. rapists and whateve ever y day. It is only fair.
That place is sitting on some fine real estate. They should move Charles Manson and friends to Death Valley rather than waste such a fine place on them.
Along that thought process, Devils Island comes to mind.
Sounds to me like they want to create more Socialist voters....
Or to a Turkish Prison where if you dont have understanding relatives/friends, you dont make it..!
L:ordy, Lordy , you are so cruel. lol
Just a great idea, and of course it is more important to educate, feed, medicate illegal Mexicans than it is to have prisons for the truly deserving in our society. Just what we need, more excuses for LIBERAL JUDGES to let more convicted murderous felons and perverts out of prisons so they can continue to rape, kill, and maim, as many do. Just what we need ---- LESS PRISONS AND MORE ILLEGALS!!!
ROTFL. Right: clearly not.
What were you in for?
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