Morgan Hill facility will be training ground for sheriff and
probation dept. recruits
Morgan Hill – A collaborative effort between the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s office, the Santa Clara County Probation Department and Gavilan College resulted in the opening Wednesday of the new Santa Clara County Harold Holden Justice Training Center.
The center is the reincarnation of the former Harold Holden Boys Ranch, a minimum security juvenile probation facility that has been vacant for about three years.
The 1.2-acre facility will now be used for training recruits in classroom settings and in physical training. Emergency vehicle training and firearms training will not take place at the site.
Students at the center will be mostly public safety personnel, administrative staff and new recruits. Some students will be officers or staff receiving in-service training to maintain necessary skills and address emerging public safety issues.
Sheriff’s office Capt. Pete Rode said the facility may be used by other agencies, but its main focus will be to prepare Sheriff’s office and Probation Department recruits.
Rode said one of the county’s retired officers spearheaded the efforts to create the new training facility. Retired Cmdr. Jeff Miles worked to make the transformation happen, Rode said.
“It would not have happened without him,” Rode said.
Deputies were also involved in the transformation, according to Cmdr. Dennis Bacon, who spoke on behalf of the Sheriff’s office.
“I’m sure somewhere there’s a picture of me painting,” he said.
The object of transforming the facility, Bacon said, was to provide the best possible quality training for personnel. He marveled at the transformation of the facility, telling the open house crowd that when he first went through the center, he was reminded of his grade school in the 1960s.
Chief Probation officer Sheila Mitchell also appreciated the deputies’ hard work.
“The Sheriff’s office was on their hands and knees transforming this site,” she said.
Cost of the renovation was negligible, Rode said, thanks, in part, to the work of the deputies. Another factor was company donations, he said. Hewlett-Packard, for example, donated most of the furniture for the classrooms, including pull-down projector screens and other accessories. The Sheriff’s Department also stored its older computers when replacing them with newer ones and brought them out to be used in a computer lab at the site.
Though there are still other classroom areas to be renovated, there is enough classroom and gym space to accommodate the training center’s first batch of recruits. The 25 future deputies begin training Monday morning.
