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By Miriam Raftery
Photo: Parole officers visit a residence, by Scorpion, Creative Commons 4.0 license
Updated June 28, 2023 with statement from Mary Xjimenez from the Calif. Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
June 27, 2023 (La Mesa) – Should a parole office be allowed in La Mesa, just a few hundred feet from elementary schools and a preschool, around the corner from breweries and cannabis dispensaries, also near a senior daycare center and other sensitive uses?
That’s exactly what the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is considering, according to a letter sent to the city dated April 25.
Kristina Khokhobashvili with the CDCR told ECM that the site, if approved, would serve not only parolees from East County and Chula Vista, but also the parolees who have tracking devices –which includes sexual predators and potentially violent offenders.
Thus far, she said, the state has not signed a lease for the site at 8374-8376 Hercules Street, across the street from Carl Burger Dodge and Journey Church, which plans to open an elementary school on its property next year. According to Khokhobashvili, the state is still researching locations.
If the site is approved, she says, “we’re looking at serving 700 people in parole” at that location.” The state would close its Chula Vista site, leaving only an Escondido parole office to serve the rest of the county’s parolees.
The La Mesa site would have 20 to 30 parole officers to handle the caseload. :”Generally, parole agents are now doing field contacts,” she said, meaning agents usually visit parolees at their workplaces or homes, not in the office. But all parolees would visit the office at least once immediately after being released from prison, and some would require follow up visits.
Mary Xjimenez, information Officer with the Calif. Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation, provided this background on the agency's search for a suitable parole office site locally.
"With the assistance of the California Department of General Services, the Division of Adult Parole Operations (DAPO) looks for potential sites based on areas where we can best serve our parolee population. This includes proximity to transit, parking for parolees, and community-based organizations that provide resources such as job assistance, substance-use treatment, and mental health treatment. Ideally, our parole unit offices are located near CDCR’s Division of Rehabilitative Programs-sponsored resources including Reentry Resource Centers, Day Reporting Centers, and Transitional Housing – again, areas where we can best serve and reach the parolee population and their families where they are."
She adds, "We have been conducting a site search in the San Diego area for more than 10 years and have faced significant challenges in securing a site that meets our requirements. We realize that many communities do not want parole offices in their neighborhoods, but DAPO also has the responsibility of providing parole supervision and ensuring public safety by providing services to community members returning to the area after incarceration."
Alice Burger is president of Burger Auto Group, which has owned and operated the Carl Burger Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep dealership for 71 years. “I’m very concerned,” she told ECM, voicing concern not only for the safety of her customers and employees, but also children and other vulnerable people nearby.
She’s started a petition with 179 signatures thus far, and voices frustration with the city for not promptly getting word out to the community.
Burger says she has researched 16 other parole centers in California and found that none were closer than 1500 feet from any school. The others were much farther away, including Chula Vista at roughly a mile from the nearest school, Escondido two miles, and Irvine, three miles.
By contrast, the proposed La Mesa site is less than 600 feet from JCS Manzanita Elementary school, 860 feet from BunnyBears preschool, and 900 feet from Journey’s planned elementary school. It’s also just 450 feet from Advantage Senior Day Care for disabled and medically challenged seniors and 400 feet from a Jiu Jitsu Foundation offering lessons to children.
“Why are the children of La Mesa being given less consideration?” asks Burger, who has testified during public comments at a recent City Council meeting and also sent a letter to City Councilmembers.
For parolees who take public transit, depending on whether they ride a bus or the trolley, some would be walking directly past schools with young children, as well as past senior housing under construction, a new apartment complex, and the Grossmont Center shopping mall which draws teens for shopping and a movie theater.
If getting off the trolley downtown, paroles would walk through the historic village district.
That’s the same historic area where merchants and residents were terrorized in May 2020 during a riot, when several buildings burned down and many stores were vandalized and looted.
La Mesa is a small city, measuring just nine square miles. The riot showed how easily the small city’s police force could be overwhelmed, unable even to protect firefighters, since fire engines sheltered in the station and let buildings burn down after rioters pelted firetrucks with rocks.
Why doesn’t the state instead put a parole center in a large city with a sizeable police force, such as the city of San Diego? Moreover, La Mesa has a lower crime rate than most surrounding cities, yet it would be forced to have an influx of paroled criminals, many of whom committed violent crimes or other serious felonies.
Moreover, the proposed parole site is just around the corner from the city’s evolving industrial district, now known as the “vice district” populated by breweries, a winery, and several marijuana dispensaries. Parolees exiting I-8 to go to the parole office would drive right past these businesses. Should such temptations be so easily accessible to ex-convicts visiting their parole office, many of whom have battled addiction issues and are struggling to stay clean and sober?
Mary England, president of the La Mesa Chamber of Commerce, says the Chamber also opposes the proposed parole center site. “We believe that based on the facts in Alice’s letter this is NOT a use that can be placed at the proposed site, due to the negative impact on children, seniors, schools, etc.,” England said in an email to ECM.
Back in 2018, when the state proposed a parole office at the base of Mount Helix next to the Brigantine restaurant near Grossmont High School, Mayor Mark Arapostathis weighed in against the project, urging the state to withdraw its plans. The state ultimately abandoned that site for “functional and logistical issues.” Over 1,800 area residents opposed that project.
But thus far, the city has declined to put the proposed parole office on Hercules Street on the agenda, nor has it sent out any press releases or taken other steps to notify the general public, even though many people could potentially be impacted.
“The City’s position is that this probation officers on private property and the property is zoned for its use,” England told ECM. The city has sent a letter to the state noting the site’s proximity to sensitive uses, but has not contested the zoning.
But Burger hints at legal action if the city and state don’t take steps to keep the parole office out of La Mesa. She told ECM, “My lawyer suggested it is a violation of zoning ordinances.”
Although the deadline for public comment to the state has formally passed, concerned residents can still send objections to Kristina.Khokhobashvili@cdcr.ca.gov or call (916)956-6160. You can also contact the property owner at jeni@floit.com.
The next City Council meeting is tonight at 6 p.m., when residents can sign up to speak during the public comments portion of the meeting.
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