Utica Park getting permanent kitchen

He was shoveling gravel in a chest-deep ditch on a chill December morning, but the orange-clad prisoner looked like he was enjoying himself.

“It’s cool helping out the community, doing something good instead of bad,” said inmate Postler, a grin between his dark glasses and long goatee.

Postler, whose first name was not released for privacy reasons, was one of a dozen inmates from the Vallecito Conservation Camp working at Utica Park Thursday, helping complete the latest step in a project that will give Angels Camp its first public kitchen.

The 800-square-foot facility is being funded by $80,000 from a $200,000 grant the city received seven years ago from the California Parks and Recreation Department, according to Mary Kelly, city clerk.
 

Discounted labor from the inmates — who were putting in a French drain behind the kitchen’s retaining wall — stretches the dollars, along with donations from the Firefighters Association, which first proposed the project.

All the kitchen’s fixtures, from sinks to stoves to lights, were donated by the group.

The association has long set up a temporary kitchen in the park for the annual Fireman’s Fun Day in August. Now they’ll have a permanent facility, with commercial-grade equipment.

“Instead of cooking in barrels or whatever, they’ll actually have a nice kitchen to work with,” said Steve Flaigg, city building inspector.

The rest of the year, the kitchen will be rented to the public — at a rate still to be determined — for weddings, birthdays, anniversaries and other events.

“It’s a win-win for everybody,” said Flaigg.

Even the inmates.   

Most are doing time for drug offenses or minor robberies, according to their supervisor, Vallecito Fire Captain Jeff Goularte,

“Unfortunately, they get caught in this life,” he said. “We try to teach them a work ethic.”

Inmate Espinoza, a medium-sized man with a handlebar mustache, was already feeling a sense of accomplishment Thursday.   

“We’ll come out someday and say, ‘Hey, we did that,’ ” he said.