Newsom announces San Quentin Prison revamp to emphasize rehabilitating inmates

By TOM JOYCE THE CENTER SQUARE CONTRIBUTOR

(The Center Square) – California Gov. Gavin Newsom is planning to overhaul the state’s prison system.

Gov. Newsom visited San Quentin State Prison and announced his plan to make the San Francisco bay prison serve a different purpose. He wants the prison to serve as a center for lower-risk prisoners to receive education, job training, and rehabilitation for substance abuse.

Under Gov. Newsom’s plan announced Friday, the facility would receive a name change: the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center. The inmates serving prison sentences there would be moved to other prisons in the state penitentiary system.

Touting his plan, Gov. Newsom pointed to the state’s high recidivism rate. He said its current criminal justice model is not working, so the state must change to ensure ex-inmates avoid recidivism.

“We are as dumb as we want to be,” Gov. Newsom said at the event. “Two-thirds of folks, the senator says, coming out of the prison every single year, or at least within three years, violate probation or commit another damn crime? I mean, two-thirds? And we perpetuate that system, and we call that system somehow public safety oriented?

Where’s the public safety in that?”

Gov. Newsom will allocate $20 million to enact this plan.

Assemblymember Mia Bonta, D-Oakland, praised Newsom for what she sees as a commitment to public safety by putting a greater emphasis on rehabilitation programs.

She noted that she wants to see inmates grow stronger ties to the communities where they live in hopes that they will commit fewer crimes in the future.

“Opening prisons to more programming by CBOs (community-based organizations) not only shifts the culture in the prisons, it helps to forge a connection in the community that people will return to,” Assemblymember Bonta said. “And let’s be clear: 95% of our people who are in prison will be coming home to us and will be rejoining us as neighbors. Ask yourself: what condition do you want them in to rejoin our community?”

Assemblymember Damon Connolly, DSan Rafael, praised Gov. Newsom for what he thinks will be an effective approach to reducing crime and incarceration.

“The truth is in our system as things stand most people released from prison are likely to end up back behind bars,” Assemblymember Connolly said. “Today, I’m proud to join our governor and my legislative colleagues to say that this will no longer be California’s reality. We must do better and we will.”

San Quentin State Prison is the only prison in California that can legally carry out executions. However, the state has not executed anyone since 2006.

“Public testimony has provided evidence that some landlords are reading the existing code language as having loopholes,” staff said in its report to the council. “This ordinance addresses an urgent need to protect tenants from evictions, particularly evictions by owners using apparent loopholes in existing regulations to exploit and displace tenants.”

Tenants who spoke before the council said their landlords would tell them they have to leave so they could make “safety” or “habitability” repairs, when, in fact, the repairs they make, if any, are often just “cosmetic” in nature.

One speaker, Wendy Santamaria, an organizer with the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy, urged the council to help the tenants, who are afraid of ending up homeless on the street or being displaced and having to move away.

“I want to appeal to your heart,” she said. “These are real people, not just those in this room but

Santa Barbara already has a tenant protection law on the books intended to be more protective than statewide regulations, staff said. This emergency ordinance would amend that law as it pertains to just cause for residential evictions.

Grounds for no-fault just cause eviction include: recovery of a rental unit for the owner’s personal or family residence; removal of the property from the rental market; compliance with a governmental order that requires vacating a rental unit; and demolition or substantial remodel of a rental unit.

Nevertheless, “the City Council has received numerous reports of actions by owners seeking to exploit apparent loopholes in the ordinance,” staff repeated in its report.

Councilmember Kristen Sneddon told the News-Press previously that changes could be made to make the threshold higher to justify an eviction,

Please see EVICTIONS on A4

SB City Council committee tackles illegal housing rentals

By NEIL HARTSTEIN NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER

The city has long wanted to do something about the increasing number of illegal short-term housing rentals operating in Santa Barbara, and the City Council Finance Committee could begin the crackdown today when it considers authorizing a 12-month pilot program aimed at enforcement.

Staff is recommending the committee adopt a resolution to appropriate funds for the development of a short-term rental enforcement pilot program directed by the City Attorney’s Office and the Finance Department.

The Finance Committee will meet in the David Gebhard public meeting room, 630 Garden St., starting at noon.

The overall objective of the year-long pilot program is to gather accurate data on the number, location and seasonality of short-term vacation rentals operating in the city, staff said.

Once accurate data is obtained, the effort shifts to that of gaining compliance with the city’s zoning laws through investigation and, if necessary, prosecution of people operating illegal rentals in the inland areas of the city and in the Coastal Zone in response to nuisance-based complaints, staff said.

“The true magnitude and accompanying costs of that enforcement effort cannot be determined until accurate information is ascertained,” staff said.

While short term rentals are not permitted in most areas of Santa Barbara, they have nonetheless become a new form of visitor lodging in the city within the past decade.

STRs constitute the rental of any dwelling unit to any person for exclusive transient use of less than 30 days.

“While an informal market may have existed in years past, hosts can now make a spare room or an entire apartment or house available to potential

Please see RENTALS on A2