The Los Angeles County Probation Oversight Commission is considering using its subpoena power to compel Probation Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa to show up at future meetings and stay long enough to answer questions.
The commission’s hostile relationship with Viera Rosa hit a boiling point Thursday, May 8, when the chief — ordered by the Board of Supervisors to address the commission’s recommendations to depopulate the troubled Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall — arrived late for the meeting, went through about half of the seven recommendations and then left after about an hour for another appointment.
“I’m very concerned about the relationship between this commission and the chief and the lack of transparency, the lack of preparedness and the ability to have a conversation,” said Commissioner Brooke Harris, executive director of the California Youth Defender Center. “If we have to look at getting him here through subpoena, I think we have to do that.”
Viera Rosa clashed with commissioners throughout the meeting and suggested their questions were slights against him and the department’s efforts to fix Los Padrinos. During one exchange, Viera Rosa, who had been unable to provide an answer but assured commissioners he would get back to them with it at a later date, was asked who he would get the answers from.
“These questions are more commentary than questions,” he said. “That is an offensive question.”
Two days earlier, the Board of Supervisors’ unanimous vote directing the chief to assess and respond to the commission’s recommendations drew applause from an audience of advocates opposed to the Probation’s Department’s own proposals for Los Padrinos. Now, it has become the latest source of friction between the chief and the appointed commission overseeing his department.
After Viera Rosa left, Commission Chair Eduardo Mundo questioned whether it would be better to require Viera Rosa to respond in writing in the future, describing him as “unprepared” during in-person appearances.
Mundo suggested the commission could even take a vote of no confidence against the chief in the future.
“It is dismissive, it is arrogance,” Mundo said. “At some point, we’ve got to vote on whether or not we have confidence in him.”
Vicky Waters, a spokesperson for the Probation Department, would not say where the chief went after the meeting or why he had not blocked out more time. The meeting began at 9 a.m. and Viera Rosa — whose late arrival prompted a shuffling of the agenda —- was scheduled to appear elsewhere by 11 a.m., according to the comments at the meeting.
“The Chief was asked to discuss the Commission’s proposals on lowering the population at Los Padrinos, as ordered by the court, and he did,” she said.
The county previously submitted its own plan to depopulate Los Padrinos to a Superior Court judge May 2.
The plan proposes shuffling at least 100 youth in Los Padrinos to other facilities, including Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar, Campus Kilpatrick in the Santa Monica Mountains and Camp Paige in La Verne. The hope is that by reducing the population at Los Padrinos, the department will be able to stabilize the juvenile hall with its depleted staff.
“The Department’s approach is based on public safety and feasibility, as well as ensuring the wellness and safety of the youth in our care,” Waters said. “We submitted that plan to the court and will await that response.”
Los Padrinos was ordered closed by the state in December, but the county refused to comply and continues to fight the state’s decision. The L.A. County Public Defender’s Office challenged the unlawful use of the facility on behalf of its clients, prompting Espinoza’s intervention.
In statements, county Supervisors Janice Hahn and Lindsey Horvath, who co-authored the motion, expressed disappointment in Viera Rosa’s appearance.
“Chief Viera Rosa walked out of today’s Probation Oversight Commission meeting without addressing its recommendations,” Horvath stated. “That defies the Board’s orders and disrespects a Commission actually working to fix a broken system.”
“We are at a make-or-break moment for the youth in our care, and the Chief’s behavior does not reflect this reality, nor does it communicate the importance of our partners in the effort to turn around a failing Department,” she said.
Hahn called Viera Rosa’s appearance and answers to the commission “inadequate.”
“Our commissioners put forward thoughtful, pragmatic strategies to help Probation comply with the court-ordered depopulation of Los Padrinos and, at the very least, they should get a clear response from the department,” she stated. “The Chief has not yet responded to all the recommendations or answered the many questions surrounding his own depopulation plan, so I assume he is planning on returning at their next meeting to finish the conversation.”
Helen Chavez, a spokesperson for Supervisor Kathryn Barger, said Barger believes it is “critical that both the Probation Oversight Commission and the Chief of Probation approach their roles with a shared commitment to transparency, accountability and — above all — the well being of the youth in the County’s care.”
Barger maintains that both sides have a responsibility to “ensure meetings remain constructive and mission-focused,” Chavez said.
Commissioner Milinda Kakani compared Viera Rosa’s appearance at the meeting to another oversight commission’s frequent battles with former L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva. The L.A. County Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission similarly had to turn to subpoenas to compel Villanueva to appear as well, though he ignored the orders for years until the commission took him to court over it.
“That just feels wildly unacceptable to me,” Kakani said. “My desire would be to subpoena the chief and maybe the subpoena needs to include specific hours.”
Viera Rosa quietly exited the meeting while the commission heard from members of the public. At the time, he had yet to address about half of the commission’s recommendations.
The recommendations differed from the Probation’s Department’s plan in several key areas. While Probation’s plan largely revolves around spreading out the population of Los Padrinos among other facilities, the oversight commission instead wanted to see more of those in the county’s custody released into community programs.
One of the recommendations asked the department to reassess all of its detention reports — a document created by probation officials and used by judges to determine where a youth is placed — for completeness, factual accuracy and balance. The commission believed that review could uncover as many as 60 youth who could be safely released.
At the meeting, however, Viera Rosa said the department had conducted a review of the 275 youth in its custody and found only two who qualified.
“I see no evidence that a whole host of young people were detained because of bad reports,” he said.
The chief was unable to answer questions about the department’s process for making that determination and said he would have to provide those answers at a later date. The review was done in conjunction with the District Attorney’s and Public Defender’s offices, he said.
Later in the meeting, John Mathews, the chief of staff for the public defender, spoke against Probation’s plan.
“I want to make sure the record is absolutely clear that the public defender and our team was not consulted on Probation’s global plan,” Mathews said. “We at the Public Defender’s Office strongly support the Probation Oversight Commission’s thoughtful recommendations. In particular, we support the immediate safe release of eligible youth through rapid and thorough reassessments of detention recommendations. This has not happened.”
At times, Viera Rosa offered little explanation for why the commission’s recommendations could not be implemented other than the fact that he had already submitted a differing plan to the courts and must move quickly to comply with the court’s orders to depopulate Los Padrinos.
Commissioners and advocates have criticized a proposal to send all girls in the department’s custody to Campus Kilpatrick in the Santa Monica Mountains, a facility specifically designed to hold young men whose cases have already been adjudicated. Kilpatrick, in its current capacity, is considered one of the most successful programs in the juvenile system and is often a goal to work toward for young men seeking to live in a less-restrictive facility.
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LA County plans to reopen Sylmar juvenile hall, relocate girls to Santa Monica Mountain camp Judge orders LA County to depopulate Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall fails inspection, will be operating illegally by week’s end LA County defies order to close Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, files last-minute appeal Another court hearing, another delay on whether to close Los Padrinos Juvenile HallViera Rosa acknowledged that the plan would require the construction of additional quarters for a proposed increase to the number of staff on site and that the department also would need to consider the potential dangers that shifting the girls from single rooms to dorm-style quarters could pose. The young men at Kilpatrick would be transferred to the higher security Barry J. Nidorf Secure Youth Treatment Facility in Sylmar.
The commission’s recommendation proposed moving the girls to the Dorothy Kirby Center in Commerce and to leave Kilpatrick as it is.
That isn’t going to happen, Viera Rosa said. Kilpatrick was chosen because it is a newer facility and most likely to pass a state inspection, he added. “With limited options and opportunities, we have to work with the locations that we have,” he said.
Judge Espinoza will determine whether the Probation Department’s plan is sufficient at a hearing scheduled for May 16. Both the District Attorney’s and Public Defender’s offices will have a chance to weigh in ahead of the hearing.
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