Officials Assail Idea for Prison in Chatsworth

Elected officials from the San Fernando Valley Wednesday criticized a plan under consideration by the Deukmejian Administration to convert a California Conservation Corps camp in Chatsworth into a minimum-security prison.

“The plan is totally unacceptable,” said City Councilman Hal Bernson, whose district includes Chatsworth. “There is no way we are going to have a prison in that area,” he said, adding that he sent a letter of protest to the governor on Wednesday.

Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda) also rejected the idea, saying: “We will not under any circumstances allow a prison to be located in that residential area. The public won’t stand for it, nor will the city.”

Sparsely Populated Area

The 22-acre CCC camp, called Oat Mountain Center, is in a sparsely populated area about 2,700 feet high near the crest of the Santa Susana Mountains, about five miles north of the intersection of De Soto Avenue and the Simi Valley Freeway. It now houses 49 corps members, but can accommodate 77.

Oat Mountain CCC operations would be moved to a nearby location.

It is one of 17 CCC camps throughout the state that the Deukmejian Administration is considering converting to minimum-security prisons because of crowding in state penal facilities, state officials said Wednesday.

Prison administrators have visited the Chatsworth site to determine how many prisoners it can accommodate, the officials said.

The camp has six barracks-like structures built in 1956 and 1957, including two dormitories, a kitchen, dining facilities and an administrative building. It also has basketball and tennis courts, said Susanne Levitsky, a CCC spokeswoman.

Formerly an Army Nike anti-aircraft missile site, the camp was acquired by the City of Los Angeles in 1977. At that time, it was leased to the state with the provision that it be turned into a Conservation Corps facility when former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. established the CCC, a state version of President Franklin Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, which existed from 1933 to 1942.

Integral Part of Valley

Corps members from the camp, who are 18 to 23 years old, work on conservation projects within a 60-mile radius. They are paid $580 a month, of which $145 a month is repaid to the state for room and board.

Katz said the Oat Mountain camp has become an integral part of the San Fernando Valley, noting that corps members have assisted residents in fire control and conservation. Corps members from Oat Mountain have been responsible for repair of trails in state parks, highway landscaping, tree planting and restoration of historic buildings, Levitsky said.

If the prison plan is approved, Katz said, “an extremely positive influence would be replaced with something terribly negative. We won’t stand for it.”

State Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys) said turning the facility into a prison would be inappropriate because of the proximity of residential neighborhoods, about four miles to the south.

“People live too close by for a prison to be located in Chatsworth,” he said. “We just can’t have it there.”