Robinson Bill to Expedite Building of Jails Advances

The Assembly Public Safety Committee Monday approved a bill to legalize shortcuts for building new jails in counties with substantial overcrowding and authorize $450 million in bond measures for jail and prison construction.

If the measure is approved and signed by the governor, the bond measures next year--calling for $300 million for prisons and $150 million for county jails--would mark the third time in five years that California voters have been asked to approve general obligation bonds for correctional facilities.

But Assemblyman Richard Robinson (D-Garden Grove), author of the bill, said the new bond authorizations are needed to make up shortfalls for already-approved construction projects and to replace an unworkable lease-purchase revenue bond arrangement approved by the Legislature for a proposed prison construction.

The new prison bonds would be only for a proposed new prison at Avenal in Kings County and another at a yet-undetermined Southern California site.

In 1982 and 1984, voters approved bond measures totaling $530 million for county jails and $795 million for prisons.

Industry Opposition

The committee approved Robinson’s bill 6 to 0 despite construction industry opposition to the jail-building shortcuts and “reservations” expressed by Gov. George Deukmejian’s Youth and Correctional Agency over the repeal of the lease-purchase procedure for prison construction.

The version of the bill approved by the panel Monday was a substantially more significant measure than the one introduced by Robinson March 26.

As originally written, the bill would have affected only Orange and Los Angeles counties, allowing those counties, under special emergency circumstances, to begin site preparation, grading and foundation work for new jail facilities before designs were completed and approved. The sheriffs and boards of supervisors of those counties could declare an emergency by certifying that existing jail facilities are more than 20% over capacity.

But Robinson amended the bond provisions into the bill last week and on Monday made the so-called “fast-tracking” construction shortcut apply to all counties.

Robinson introduced the bill a few days after a U.S. district judge held Sheriff Brad Gates and Orange County officials in contempt of a seven-year-old federal court order to improve conditions at Orange County’s main jail.

Solid Reduction

Officials from Los Angeles County, which originally suggested the bill, said the construction shortcuts could reduce jail construction time by a third.

Warren Mendel, lobbyist for the Associated General Contractors of California, said the construction industry opposes the fast-tracking procedure because “it is impossible to bid unless you know what you are going to build.”

But Robinson said industry’s real objection was that the procedure will allow small contractors to bid on portions of major capital projects, and make it more difficult for one large contractor to get “the whole thing.”