Coalinga. This Central Valley city could reap financial rewards if its selection as the preferred site of a high-security hospital for male sexually violent predators clears the Legislature.

Coalinga lobbied for the hospital against El Centro in Imperial County near San Diego.

California’s Sexually Violent Predator law, passed in 1995, provides that violent sexual predators can be held for an additional two years after a prison term ends if the court and psychiatrists recommend it, said Larry B. McVicar, Coalinga city council member and associate warden at nearby Pleasant Valley State Prison. The proposed state hospital in Coalinga would house such offenders, McVicar said.

More than 330 males are being treated at Atascadero State Hospital in San Luis Obispo under the Sexually Violent Predator law. That population would be moved to Coalinga upon the projected completion in 2004 of the new hospital, according to the California Department of Mental Health. Female sexual predators will continue to be treated at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino.

The Joint Legislative Budget Committee in Sacramento has until September to review the preferred site, said Nora Romero, spokeswoman for the California Department of Mental Health. "If there are no problems, then – in general – the director of the Department of Mental Health can certify and complete the final environmental impact report," Romero said.

"It looks pretty definite that we’ll get [the hospital]," McVicar said. "It would have a major impact on local employment. The local community college would be the training site for psychiatric technicians, and it will be adding a nursing program.

"The current plan is to be connected to a University of California medical school so that residents can work here," he added.

The hospital would have 1,500 employees to start, McVicar said.

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