Whitewater Jail

I went to the information open house for the proposed Riverside County Detention Facility (i.e., the Whitewater Jail) in Cabazon tonight. They had a few tables displaying information set up around a basketball court in the community center. Besides info on the jail, the Sheriff's office and the firefighters had general public information tables set up. Supervisor Marian Ashley was there, and his office was providing the refreshments!

There was one display showing all the other jail facilities in Riverside County, all looking very nice and unthreatening. I'm sure that was their intent. Another table had a continuous looping video which looked like it was made in Google Earth that showed flyovers and flyarounds and flybackandforths so you could see the proposed facility from all kinds of angles. You could see in this presentation that the buildings inside the jail will rise well above the berm that will be screening the view from I-10. So the berm will only be blocking the view of the ugly, serious stuff: fences, razor wire, guard towers (maybe they won't have guard towers). You will see in all the graphics that they count on a lovely line of thick, green trees surrounding the jail that will rise above the berm to help soften the view. I suppose architectural design software doesn't include a tree that looks like it's in the Banning Pass. The trees need to list to the east with shredded, half bare western sides.

The proposed location, east of Cabazon, west of Haugen Lehman, squeezed between I-10 and the Colorado River Aqueduct.

An excerpt from the Google Earth flyover.

The view from the east. Top is the current view, bottom is the architect's rendering of the future view. Look as those tall, straight trees!

The view from the west. Top is the current view, bottom is the future view. The trees again.

The first phase.

Another view of the first phase, showing the whole shebang. Go here to see this plan fleshed out at its final phase.

At the environmental table they had this list of events in the CEQA process. They have extended the period for responding to the Notice of Preparation to February 9.

If you want to send comments, you can mail them (postal wise) to this address:

County of Riverside Dept. of Facilities Management
PO Box 1468
Riverside CA 92502

or you can email them to saferstreets@co.riverside.ca.us

Here's their website and if you go to the documents page you'll find PDFs of many of the handouts they had at this evening's open house.

Those who are interested in Green Path North should give some attention to the graphics above and following, as the Green Path North environmental project will go though the same process.

Look how fast the environmental process is expected to go, with the final EIR coming out possibly late spring or early summer this year.

I don't find the location or design objectionable - except for the trees. I think those should simply be done away with. It'll be an ongoing expense, pouring water into dying, ragged trees. Just put some desert appropriate plantings on and around the berm and let it go.

Those Californians who have been supporting more and longer prison sentences should accept this jail as the logical consequence. A better long-term solution, in my opinion, is eliminating victimless crime laws and shortening sentences.