Los Angeles County leaders are planning a

Closed

juvenile detention center and deploy reserve sheriff officers to work the facilities as they race to resolve a personnel crisis that has threatened state regulators

Close

the province’s two remaining youth halls.

The steps include more than

a dozen changes to the probation department that Los Angeles County supervisors unanimously approved Tuesday as part of a plan to restore a juvenile justice system in crisis and stave off state intervention.

Under the plan, the county would reopen Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, which closed in 2019 amid dwindling population and allegations of abuse

by staff

. About $28 million would be put into upgrading Los Padrinos, as well as Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar and Central Juvenile Hall in Boyle Heights. And the Sheriff’s Department would send reserve officers, volunteer members of the department, to man the long-troubled juvenile halls.

The vote on the plan came less than a day after Karen Fletcher, interim chief of probation, resigned after a brief two-month stint as chief of the department.

Fletcher told The Times she was ready to retire after working on probation for more than three decades. She said she handed in her resignation on Monday night and her last day is May 19.

“After nearly 34 years in probation, it’s time to retire and start the next chapter of my life,” she wrote in a farewell memo to staff.

bat

became

interim director

in March

after the board sacked then-

attempt

Chef Adolfo Gonzales. Due to her abrupt resignation, the county is now looking for a permanent director and an interim director at the same time.

Board chair Janice Hahn said Tuesday the board would meet in closed session to discuss finding a replacement for Fletcher’s post.

During Fletcher’s brief time at the helm, state oversight of the district’s youth departments only intensified. The California Justice Department accused the county of ignoring the terms of a 2021 settlement to resolve the appalling conditions at the juvenile facilities.

The county and DOJ are expected to appear in court on May 9.

And the California Board of State and Community Corrections threatened to close the halls after repeatedly finding them not in compliance with a long list of state regulations.

The board has scheduled a meeting for May 23 to decide whether to evict Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall and Central Juvenile Hall.

Provincial leaders hope that the plan voted on Tuesday will appear

both

state regulators and prosecutors. But it sparked outrage from youth lawyers, who accused the county of betraying a promise it made to break out of prisons and recklessly move staff from one chronically dysfunctional department to another.

If we just take a moment to look at Mens Central Prison and what happened there at the hands of the sheriff, to think that that same body would somehow do some good to our young people, it feels very shortsighted said Milinda Kakani, director of juvenile justice at Children’s Defense Fund.

Brooke Harris, chief of the Pacific Juvenile Defender Center, called the deployment of sheriff’s officers “extremely troubling.”

“Admitting reserve sheriffs who do not have the requisite training or experience to work with vulnerable youth is a massive miscalculation at best and a recipe for unthinkable results at worst,” she said. “Juveniles in LA juvenile facilities have been abused and neglected long enough.”

The sheriff’s department did not comment on the substance of the motion.

The plan received little fanfare from the Supervisory Board. It was made public Friday night as part of the county’s supplemental agenda, a second iteration of the agenda for proposals meeting later in the week. And on Tuesday, a vote was taken as part of the assent calendar in which a package of motions is voted on without comment in one go.

Director

officers

Fesia Davenport wrote in an executive letter that the plan was intended to ensure an optimal and constitutional level of care for probation youth and would not increase the probation footprint. She wrote that sheriff’s reserve officers would receive training that would equip them with the skills needed to work with probation youth.

The proposal would also reshuffle the youth currently split between Barry J. Nidorf and Central Juvenile Hall. The approximately 275 juveniles in county custody would be transferred to Los Padrinos. Barry J. Nidorf would now house only youths charged with serious crimes, including murder and assault. And Central would be used in part as a law enforcement recording unit and a youth medical center in the county’s trial halls and camps. It’s not clear

when the changes outlined in the plan will be implemented. a

County spokesman said a “timeline is being developed

.”

The letter says state regulators must conduct a pre-inspection of Los Padrinos before the county can begin transferring youths to the facility.