Stop the Palm Springs Prison Facility

Background: The County of Riverside seeks to construct the largest detention center in the County at the gateway to Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley. The facility will cost approximately $500 million to construct and will house up to 7,200 prisoners according to the Notice of Environmental Impact dated Dec. 2, 2008. The notice states that valley residents have only 30 days to review and comment on this project.

THEREFORE:

We the undersigned, strongly object to the construction of the Riverside County Regional Detention Center located on I-10 at the entrance to the Coachella Valley.

FURTHERMORE, we demand that the Riverside County Supervisors and all Local Government Officials work together to select an alternate site that will not have such a negative impact.

The site of the proposed prison is completely inappropriate for the small communities of the Coachella Valley, for the following reasons:

1) It will damage vital habitat and impact the newly created wildlife corridor between San Jacinto and Cabazon;

2) It will destroy the tourism-based economy that has been the life-blood of the Coachella Valley for decades;

3) At a capacity of 7,200 prisoners it will make our small valley a dumping ground for criminals;

4) It will ruin property values valley-wide, which will more than off-set the small value of the few hundred prison-related jobs the detention center will create;

5) It will increase crime by exposing our valley to criminals who would otherwise never enter the valley;

6) It will put our snowbird population at risk, because their homes are vacant half of the year;

7) It will put our elderly and retired population at risk, because they cannot defend themselves against violent criminals;

8) At a time when schools are laying off teachers due to lack of funds, it is unconscionable to spend $500 million for a state-of-the-art prison;

9) MOREOVER, since Riverside County has a total land area of more than 7,000 square miles there is ample space to place the prison elsewhere