L.A. County’s chief probation officer said he plans to depart the troubled agency as a deadline to evacuate Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall approaches, sources said, potentially leaving more than 200 incarcerated youths with no place to go.
Probation chief Guillermo Viera Rosa sent a brief memo Wednesday to the county Board of Supervisors saying he planned to retire by the end of the year, according to several sources who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive personnel matter.
Viera Rosa’s unexpected departure would cap a 20-month stint during which he failed to reform an agency whose juvenile halls again face the threat of closure under mounting scrutiny from oversight agencies and the California attorney general’s office. The county Probation Department is responsible for overseeing both adult parolees and youths in juvenile camps and halls.
“We have a lot of challenges in the Probation Department and I thank him for taking on this job during some difficult times,” Supervisor Janice Hahn, whose district includes the Los Padrinos facility in Downey, said in a statement. “I wish him the best.”
The Board of Supervisors scheduled a closed-door meeting with Viera Rosa for Tuesday. According to the meeting agenda, the board will conduct a performance review for the chief and consider candidates to replace him.
Through a Probation Department spokesperson, Viera Rosa declined to comment.
A former member of the California Board of State and Community Corrections — the oversight body that has repeatedly threatened to shut the county’s dilapidated juvenile facilities — Viera Rosa was tasked with ushering in improvements after his predecessor was fired on the heels of two Times investigations into abuses and mismanagement.
Instead, Viera Rosa has found himself squarely in the crosshairs of the oversight board he once sat on.
He initially joined the county as chief strategist for juvenile operations. Soon after, an 18-year-old died of a drug overdose inside Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar, after weeks of alarming reports from regulatory bodies about drug use among teens in the facility.
Viera Rosa reopened the defunct Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, but the facility quickly descended into chaos. In the first month alone, there was a riot and an escape attempt, a supervisor was caught bringing a gun on the grounds, and staffers continued to refuse to report to work.
In October, the Board of State and Community Corrections found that Viera Rosa had failed to get a handle on the staffing crisis and that Los Padrinos was no longer safe for youths. The board gave the department until Dec. 12 to relocate more than 200 youths from Los Padrinos.
Viera Rosa has shown little intention to move them, frustrating corrections board members, who have repeatedly said the agency’s facilities are dangerous for young people.
“There is no effort at this time to make any sort of plan to relocate the young people detained in Los Padrinos,” said Angeles Zaragoza, a board member and alternate public defender, at a Nov. 21 meeting where she rebuked the county, accusing it of “blatant disregard” of the oversight board. “I’m just at a loss to how we have gotten here.”
Attorneys for the board said at the meeting they would consider legal action against the agency if the relocation deadline came and went without movement from the county.
“Everyone on this board is concerned about Dec. 12 and what will occur after Dec. 12,” board Chair Linda Penner said.
A spokesperson for the board said it was not told about Viera Rosa’s plans to leave the agency.
Not all of Viera Rosa’s bosses treated his departure as a done deal. Supervisor Kathryn Barger said in a statement that she wanted “strong and consistent leadership at the top.”
“I want to explore if there’s an opportunity to have Probation Department Chief Viera Rosa continue his service to our County,” she said. “Effective leadership is critical to implementing reforms and ensuring that the department’s staff can perform the important work of rehabilitation and support for the youth in their care. The challenges we face are big — but not unsurmountable.”
The offices of the other three supervisors either declined to comment or did not comment before publication.
Probation Department spokesperson Vicky Waters declined to comment on Viera Rosa’s departure but said the department hopes to avert a shutdown of Los Padrinos by passing another inspection. Inspectors were at Los Padrinos on Thursday, according to the corrections board.
“We are confident that the initial improvements implemented will ensure compliance,” Waters said.
The president of the union representing rank-and-file probation officers, which has long expressed frustration with both department leadership and the Board of Supervisors, welcomed Viera Rosa’s announcement.
“Under his leadership, there has been failure after failure,” Stacy Ford, president of local union AFSCME 685, said in a statement. “People don’t leave good jobs because they don’t like their job, they leave because of bad leadership. Under his leadership, officers were forced into retirement, officers were forced home on medical leave, officers were forced to work in a toxic unsafe work environment and many officers quit because of the abuse.”
