Fairfield, Solano explore building prison reentry site

Fairfield, Solano explore building prison reentry site
By Barry Eberling | DAILY REPUBLIC | August 14, 2009

FAIRFIELD - Fairfield is working with the state to find a possible location for a 500-inmate reentry facility to help local residents in the state prison system learn life and job skills prior to being paroled.

Fairfield officials had an informal meeting with state Department of Corrections officials about a month ago to discuss possible sites, including properties owned by the city along Cordelia Road, City Manager Sean Quinn said. This comes after Fairfield opposed a 2007 proposal by Solano County to build a facility near the Claybank Jail.

'We're still basically in the very preliminary stages of discussion with them,' Quinn said. 'We haven't determined which site works best. We haven't decided if this thing is in our best interest or not.'

Yet an idea that two years ago appeared dead is now, in the words of City Councilman John Mraz, 'alive and kicking.'

California started pushing counties in 2007 to find sites for state reentry facilities to serve prison inmates about to be released back into the counties. Before release, inmates would go to the reentry facilities to learn such things as job and anger management skills and get treatment for substance abuse.


Each reentry facility would hold no more than 500 inmates. The intent as stated by California officials is a Solano County facility would serve inmates who came to the state prison system from Solano County and were scheduled to be released back to Solano County.

'Right now, all we're doing is putting parolees out in the streets with $200 and that's shameful,' Mraz said.

To encourage counties to accept the reentry facilities, the state linked bond money for county jail expansions to the program.

Solano County took the lead in 2007 and proposed the Claybank Jail site for a reentry facility. Other county-owned properties appeared to be too far away from cities, in more remote rural areas that wouldn't be favored by the state.

But Fairfield officials opposed the site near Clay Bank Road and Air Base Parkway because Lewis Planned Communities wants to build a nearby community with about 2,300 homes. That caused some tension between the city and county because the county wanted to qualify for jail expansion money.

'Location, location, location,' Mraz said. 'It was not a good location.'

Mraz said he contacted the state Department of Corrections about finding alternative sites and learned the state would be receptive.

Among the possible sites are properties Fairfield owns south of Cordelia Road that the state would buy. One is at Chadbourne Road between the peaker power plant and the Fairfield-Suisun Sewer District plant. The other is near Hale Ranch Road and was once considered for a Field of Dreams site.

Such sites are away from homes, Mraz said.

See the complete story at the Daily Republic online.