Have you ever been to Madison?
Not the city in Wisconsin, but the three blocks by four blocks in rural Yolo County that's home to 300 people and seasonal occupants of a migrant farmworker camp.
There aren't many residents, but it seems most every one of them is spitting mad about a proposal that would double the population with convicted felons.
Yolo County supervisors agreed this week that an alfalfa field near town would be the best place to build a re-entry prison in exchange for $30 million from the state.
With just days to go before a final vote Tuesday, Madisonites are digging in for a fight. They're worried about the safety of their families if the state drops 500 inmates on their doorstep.
They have been painting protest signs, firing off e-mails, calling emergency meetings and asking lawyers and neighbors for help.
"We're not sleeping. We're not eating," said Carla Phillips, 47. "We are trying to figure out how to save the lives we've been developing in this community for 20 or 30 years."
Meanwhile, Yolo County officials are racing toward a different goal.
By the time they vote Tuesday, supervisors want an agreement from the state to help solve Madison's flooding, water and sewer problems in exchange for the prison site.
The town has struggled for years with winter floods. Storm runoff flows down city streets and blocks Highway 16. A retaining wall on the edge of town, where houses meet cow pasture, is a makeshift fix.
Poor water quality is another problem. A new well that went online last year sucked up sand, said Leo Refsland, manager of the local water district. The old well, which had high levels of nitrates and bacteria, was reconnected, its water treated with chlorine.
The sewer ponds on the outskirts of town were declared a nuisance, but they were recently improved, Refsland said.
The sewer and water problems resulted in a ban on growth, but Madison residents have lobbied for new development to pay for infrastructure, he said.
The county's draft general plan, released Wednesday, would allow for 1,300 new housing units and commercial acreage in Madison.
Refsland said he worries a prison could kill hopes for expansion. But he acknowledged state money would be a huge help with upgrades.
"That's a no-brainer," he said.
Madison, founded more than a century ago, has about 150 ranch-style houses. There's a convenience store, a post office and a school.
Its days as a regional farming center, when bands played Saturday night dances at the town hall, are long past.
Now it's a quiet bedroom community for mostly blue-collar folks – casino employees, construction workers, ranch managers.
Supervisor Matt Rexroad of Woodland has caught a lot of flak lately for supporting the re-entry prison.
He was already notorious in Madison for suggesting the town should be bulldozed and its residents moved to Esparto or Dunnigan.
Rexroad said Thursday that county staff members are in talks with state corrections officials to sign a memorandum of understanding, before Tuesday, that promises help with Madison's drainage, well and sewer problems.
The county might have to ask for more time when the Corrections Standards Authority meets next Thursday to consider applications from a dozen counties for re-entry prisons, he said.
Created by state law in 2007, the re-entry prisons would house up to 500 inmates serving the last year of their sentences – providing counseling, job training and drug treatment. The goal is to reduce recidivism.
In exchange for hosting the prisons, counties can receive millions of dollars in state grants to expand their jails.
Yolo has been granted a tentative claim on the $30 million to upgrade its crowded Monroe Detention Center in Woodland. First, however, it must formally offer the state a viable prison site.
Woodland, West Sacramento and Davis all said no. The law that created the re-entry prisons, Assembly Bill 900, urged that they be placed in urban areas but then gave incorporated cities an easy opt-out.
As Yolo planners looked at rural areas, hundreds of residents in Zamora, Dunnigan, West Plainfield, Esparto and Madison came to town hall meetings to protest.
On Tuesday, supervisors excluded sites near Davis and Esparto, leaving Madison the only option.
Officials said they liked the site because of its proximity to major roads and an electricity substation.
Supervisor Helen Thomson of Davis has argued that $30 million to expand the jail – and rehabilitation programs for returning Yolo County inmates – make the re-entry facility essential.
If that's the case, said Madison's Sherrie Barnett, let Thomson put it in Davis or another city. Few parolees come from Madison and other rural areas, she noted.
Barnett, 52, and her husband raised their children in a neat, green bungalow on a quiet street.
She worries inmates will be released and wander into her neighborhood. She also doesn't trust the county to spend state funds on Madison.
Officials might have thought the little, unincorporated town could be forced to accept the re-entry prison without much of a fight, Barnett said. But she vowed rural residents would band together.
"They thought they picked the path of least resistance," she said. "They're underestimating us."
Call The Bee's Hudson Sangree, (916) 321-1191.
