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| San Quentin Seen as a Hot Property |
| By wsj.com |
| Published: 03/18/2009 |
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By BOBBY WHITE SAN QUENTIN, Calif. -- Even amid the real-estate bust, waterfront property in the San Francisco Bay area is a luxury few can afford. That's why some California lawmakers want to sell San Quentin State Prison -- which houses more than 5,300 inmates on prime land with stunning views of the bay -- to developers who might pay as much as $2 billion. State Sen. Jeff Denham, who has sponsored a bill to sell the complex of historic buildings for private development, thinks the proceeds could help replenish California's recession-depleted coffers. "I believe maximum-security inmates shouldn't have waterfront property," said Mr. Denham, a Republican from Modesto, in the state's Central Valley. "They could build a new facility somewhere else in the state and it could be done at a fraction of the cost." First, he and other lawmakers who agree with him would have to block Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to spend $356 million as early as May to expand San Quentin's famous death row, a previously approved project meant to alleviate overcrowding. California's deep recession has rekindled a debate over the use of San Quentin, a 432-acre peninsula on the edge of the tony town of Larkspur in Marin County. The debate also highlights long-running questions about the viability of the state's capital-punishment system, in which nearly 650 male death-row inmates are more likely to die of natural causes than by execution as they wait for appeals. In 2003, California lawmakers approved $220 million to build a new death row at San Quentin. But after an audit placed the cost at nearly $360 million, prison managers asked the state Legislature for more money. Mr. Schwarzenegger last year allocated an additional $136 million. "The governor supports the Department of Corrections' position that to relieve overcrowding the state needs a new death-row facility," said Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Lisa Page. "And his top priority is to uphold the will of the people who want to keep San Quentin open." The Corrections Department has studied proposals to sell the prison, said Bob Sleppy, deputy director of the department's environmental-services branch, but the plans never fully account for the cost and time needed to build new prisons elsewhere. But if Mr. Schwarzenegger has his way, San Quentin would get a "Cadillac Death Row" at a time when Californians are struggling with unemployment and housing foreclosures, said Mr. Denham, who supports capital punishment. His bill calls for the prison to be sold to make way for residential and commercial development and for some of the proceeds to go toward building a new death row at another prison. Read more. If link has expired, check the website of the article's original news source. |
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