5 Years Later, State Prison at Otay Mesa Is Just a Set of Drawings

For those who insist that centers of government are unlikely places to look for straight answers, the 2,200-cell state penitentiary proposed for Otay Mesa may be a classic example.

In the state capital these days, questions about when the first inmates might arrive at the new prison near the Mexican border are greeted by anything from a shrug to a chuckle.

Five years after planning began for the $139-million California State Prison at San Diego County, there are no finished architectural drawings for any of the 10 or more buildings to be constructed; a sewer hookup to the site is the subject of intense, ongoing intergovernmental negotiations, and not one spadeful of ground has been turned.

The site is 12 miles east of the Pacific Ocean and two miles north of the international border--in an area even farther from civilization than one described by novelist Joseph Wambaugh in “Lines and Shadows” as “no-man’s land . . . a mean blood-drenched gash of mesquite and cactus and rock.”

Two wooden stakes marking the site of a future access road, plus a few dirt trails worn by off-road vehicles, are the only visible signs today that anything at all is planned on the rocky mesa covered with grass, dried sage and mustard. Crickets and hawks appear to be the only inhabitants.

Peeved legislators have ordered a $37,000 audit of the planning for the new prison. It might prove to be a constructive example of how things should not be done in the future.

Sen. Wadie Deddeh (D-Chula Vista) and Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-Chula Vista), whose districts include the 730 acres of state land between O’Neill and Johnson canyons, have kept in close contact with corrections officials in recent weeks.

Until Friday, the official target date for moving the first 500 inmates onto the grounds was still August, 1985. Some corrections officials were still holding to that projection last week.

But not many.

“Every time one of our people says we may still get it open by August, Assemblyman Peace just sort smiles and says, ‘Yeah, sure,’ ” said Robert Gore, Department of Corrections assistant director and chief spokesman.

Prison officials do not concede that the proposed facility has fallen victim to mismanagement. But several state corrections officials involved in the planning and construction met until midnight Thursday night discussing the difficulties and trying to come up with a more realistic projection for an opening date.

The only positive conclusion: The opening won’t be this summer.

Some legislative sources are convinced the new prison won’t even open before May, 1986, which the Corrections Department’s most recent internal monthly status report still lists as the completion date for the last of five housing units planned.

Among the statewide prison system’s 14 building and expansion projects in various stages of planning and construction--$1.2 billion worth--the Otay Mesa facility has fallen, they say, into a class by itself.

“It is really a big mess,” said one legislative aide who asked not to be identified.

Prison authorities are scheduled to go before the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Prison Construction and Operations today to seek agreement on how many acres the new facility will encompass, how many guard towers will be constructed and how far apart they will be.

Once that is agreed upon, and the sewer plan is intact, the 30- to 40-day bidding process for initial work on the site can begin, said Reginald Pulley, superintendent of the new prison.

Then, Pulley said, workers can begin the “early site work.” That grading, clearing of brush and surveying will take another 30 to 40 days, he said.

“We have done nothing at the site so far,” said Pulley, who remains a warden without a prison.

City, county and state officials reportedly have just begun to agree on how to provide sewage service to the remote site.

It was that dispute, plus a proposal by correctional officials earlier this month to construct a $3-million temporary, on-site sewage treatment plant, that raised the legislators’ dander.

After the Joint Committee on Prison Construction and Operations rejected the temporary plan, its chairman, Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside), asked for a legislative audit to find out how sewage plans could remain unsettled five years after planning for the new prison began.

“I thought everything was going fine, and then this sewer thing just jumped up and hit us,” Presley said.

Gore said the sewage problems sort of caught corrections officials by surprise, too--”a function,” he said, “of trying to do too many things at once.”

In San Diego County and city, however, officials already beset with a crisis over 15 million gallons of sewage flowing into the area daily from Mexico see the prison’s sewage plans as anything but a minor, last-minute detail.

“I don’t think, initially, we were aware of the sensitivity of the sewage problems in the area,” Gore said. “But we know now.”

Gore said negotiators last week agreed that the best route for the sewer hookup is west, through Johnson Canyon, to the Otay International Sewer Trunk Line, south of Chula Vista and adjacent to the border.

But he said talks are still under way regarding the cost--and who will bear it.

Gore said corrections officials never really advocated the temporary sewer facility that lawmakers found so objectionable. They were merely presenting it as one alternative for dealing with the problem.

“There’s a difference,” he said.

Now that the sewer problems appear to be almost settled, however, corrections officials are again moving ahead with other activities.

According to legislative sources, the fencing and towers could become mildly controversial if some lawmakers try to economize by reducing the number of guard towers.

“As far as I’m concerned, we are still at 12 towers, 700 feet apart,” Pulley said.

The basic drawings for the five housing units are behind schedule, but 30% complete, Gore said. The initial drawings for the laundry, kitchen, bakery and infirmary have all been approved and final designs are under way, he added.