Fury in California desert town as Gavin Newsom shuts down its last major employer

Residents of a small California desert town are furious over plans to close their last major employer, fearing it will end the ‘dying’ town forever.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, 56, announced in 2022 that the Golden State would close four prisons, including Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Blythe, which is expected to close this year.

The city, located in Riverside County near the Arizona border, was already struggling, with many of its 18,000 residents fleeing to Phoenix or the Coachella Valley.

Now they fear the elimination of nearly a thousand government jobs in the area will be the final straw.

“We know this will have a ripple effect across all sectors,” interim city manager Mallory Crecelius told the newspaper. Imperial Valley Press. “But we don’t really have an idea of ​​the impact this will have.”

Concerns about the future of the isolated city have been rumbling for some time, with a 2022 Riverside County civil investigation article titled “The town of Blythe is dying‘ draws attention to its difficulties.

“The fortunes of the community have changed dramatically over the past twenty years. Family farms have largely disappeared, businesses have left, vacant homes and buildings line the streets,” the report said.

“County tax revenues are stagnant or declining and the younger population, with few opportunities for growth and success, has fled west to the Coachella Valley or east to the growing suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona.”

While Riverside County’s population has grown by 8.5 percent over the past decade, Blythe’s population (not including inmates) has fallen by 19.5 percent.

The city also ranked third worst among California’s 470 cities based on their financial health in 2019, the report said.

Blythe’s leaders were reportedly furious about the report, The Press reported – and are now fighting hard to save their prison.

They even hired a PR firm and called their campaign “Save Chuck.”

The Chuckawalla prison employs 801 people, including more than 400 correctional officers.

Blythe officials are unsure why Newsom’s office selected the Chuckawalla prison for closure and have filed dozens of public records requests to find out why.

‘Those requests have been rejected. The state did not give us that information. They don’t have it, or they just refuse to give it to us,” Crecelius told The Press.

They have suggested that the government choose another location that does not rely so heavily on the prison for economic prosperity.

They suggested that the older California Rehabilitation Center in Norco take the blame — which they say they are willing to do, according to The Press.

However, their efforts fall on deaf ears.

When DailyMail.com contacted the governor’s office for comment, we were referred to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

A department spokesperson said, “In an effort to prioritize budgetary responsibility, CDCR has expedited the closure of Chuckawalla Valley State Prison (CVSP). CDCR expects CVSP to be deactivated by the end of the year.

“CDCR and the administration are working to minimize the impact on staff, the City of Blythe and the surrounding community.”

“The state is working closely with stakeholders to help support workers and advance a bottom-up economic resilience plan; they added.

In August, the Employment Development Department announced it had awarded nearly $1 million to the Riverside County Workforce Development Division to assist Chuckawalla workers after the closure.

The funds will help those affected “obtain education, training and jobs that will help them find good careers in high-demand sectors such as healthcare, information technology and industrial technology,” it said. Department of Employment Development.

The federally funded grant was provided by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Despite this, many Blythe residents fear that without a diploma they will not be able to find a decent paying job in their area.

Local resident Jamie Browning, who worked as a correctional officer at Chuckawalla, told The Press, “I should transfer somewhere else because where am I going to get a job making that much money with a high school education? I mean, you have to. You have no choice.’

Another resident, Maricruz Barela, 20, who lives in the city for school and her mother, told the newspaper: “There is nothing, we have nothing.”

The prison closure announcement came after the state’s prison population fell by half to 96,000 inmates over the past decade, according to The Press.

In recent years, Democratic states have relaxed bail laws, keeping many criminals out of their orange jumpsuits and reducing the need for more facilities.

As for Blythe’s future, some local residents have suggested building a logistics center or reopening their jail as an immigration detention center to keep the town afloat, the release said. But these projects would take time.

There is also a provision to close five more prisons by 2027, which would save the state more than $1 billion annually, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

But the prison is not the only problem in the region.

Getting water to the city from the Metropolitan Water District — which sends water to Los Angeles and other Southern California cities — could prove difficult.

In many cases, Blythe farmers have been forced to leave their fields barren as competition for the precious liquid increases, according to The Press.

This isn’t the first time Blythe has nearly gone extinct either.

In cowboy days it was a thriving agricultural town, with a major railroad stop and plenty of access to the Colorado River.

But when I-10 was built in 1972, area residents began to disperse.

The only thing that could save it then was keeping the prison open.