California Elections : Jail Measure Leads List of Bond Issues Facing State Voters

California voters, who since 1982 have approved $530 million for local jail construction and remodeling, are being asked on the June 3 ballot to endorse another $495-million bond issue for additional improvements designed to relieve overcrowding.

Other proposed bond issues on the primary election ballot include $850 million for the Cal-Vet farm and home loan program, $100 million for local parks and recreation projects, and $150 million for low-interest loans to local agencies for water conservation, replenishment of underground water supplies and treatment of polluted agricultural drainage.

The county jails measure, supported by Gov. George Deukmejian and approved overwhelmingly by the Legislature, is widely regarded as an additional step--but not the final one--in dealing with aging local lockups that are housing more and more accused and convicted criminals.

A chief reason for the jam-packing of local facilities is overcrowded state prisons, due in large part to several years of “get tough on crime” legislation that has sent more felons to prison for longer terms. Serious offenders who once went to state prisons are now being housed in burgeoning county jails.

Despite voter approval in 1982 and 1984 of bond issues for local jail facilities, jails are operating at about 125% of capacity statewide, Deukmejian noted recently. He said passage of Proposition 52 would send a “clear message” to criminals that “if they commit crimes, we are going to make room for them in our county jails . . . and remove them from our communities.”

Sheriff Sherman Block of Los Angeles County termed approval of the measure “essential” to his county, where he said 20,000 inmates are held in jail facilities designed for a maximum of 11,800.

Even though $530-million worth of bonds has been approved in the past four years for construction and expansion of local jails, the state Board of Corrections figures that these funds will be “fully committed” by 1988, and an additional $1 billion will be needed to incarcerate another 13,800 inmates by 1991.

The jail bond money would be spent for construction, remodeling, replacement and deferred maintenance of county jail and juvenile facilities. To qualify, counties would have to provide matching funds for 25% of a project’s cost, and develop a plan for the separate detention of juveniles, public drunks and the mentally disordered. Counties also would have to demonstrate that they made the “greatest practicable” use of alternatives to jail, such as work furlough and community service programs.

“Unless new jails are built, our system will no longer be able to house the criminals that our courts convict,” Assembly Republican Leader Pat Nolan of Glendale insists.

But the Friends Committee on Legislation, which opposes Proposition 52, maintains that too much emphasis is being put on locking up people at the expense of less-costly alternatives, including work furlough, county parole and bail programs.

The committee’s lobbyist, Cleve Jones, estimates that up to 15% of county jail prisoners are public drunks and another 15% are mentally disordered people. In addition, some counties incarcerate juveniles in adult facilities. “For these people, we need detoxification centers, community care facilities and youth programs, not more jail cells,” he said.

Jones warns that unless current trends are changed, “California taxpayers will continue to shovel billions of dollars into an apparently bottomless pit of jail construction.”

Other bond issues include:

Proposition 44

This measure would authorize the sale of $150 million in bonds to help finance projects to conserve water, replenish underground supplies and treat agricultural drainage in areas such as the selenium-polluted Kesterson wildlife refuge in the San Joaquin Valley.

Two years ago, voters approved a similar measure, which included $10 million for water conservation. But demands by local government agencies for water conservation loans outstripped the availability of funds.

The new issue would provide loans totaling $75 million for local ground-water replenishment projects, such as conserving water by putting surplus water in ditches, pits and wells, where it is allowed to seep underground for storage. When needed, the water would be pumped out.

Agricultural Interests

The $75-million balance of the bond issue, strongly backed by Central Valley agricultural interests, would raise money for loans to local public agencies to study and build treatment, storage and disposal facilities for toxic agricultural drainage. State water-quality officials say that more than 100,000 acres of land in five parts of the state have been polluted by farm drainage, and such acreage is expected to double in 10 years.

Proponents of the measure, such as Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp and state Water Resources Director David Kennedy, argue that California now “should confront the rural drainage problem with the same commitment we’ve made in treating municipal sewage water.”

But opponent Gary B. Wesley, a San Jose attorney who writes arguments against measures that otherwise would be unopposed in the official ballot pamphlet for voters, maintains that Californians should not “further subsidize big agricultural interests that are quite capable of paying their own business expenses.”

Proposition 43

This measure proposes the sale of $100 million in bonds to finance grants for local parks and recreation projects. Included would be the purchase, development and improvement of sites, acquisition of beach access and historical buildings and purchase of land to head off developments near a park.

Local public entities would have to put up 25% of the cost of purchasing land to qualify for a grant from the bond issue. Proponents maintain that the need for park and recreation projects has far surpassed the ability of local governments to meet the demand in the face of accelerating population growth.

Opponents have argued that bond issues create a debt for future generations of Californians to pay off. They maintain that user fees should finance park and recreation facilities on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Proposition 42

This ballot measure would authorize the sale of $850 million in bonds to continue financing the 63-year-old Cal-Vet farm and home loan program, under which qualified veterans receive low-interest loans to purchase or improve their homes, farms and mobile homes.

An additional 12,000 men and women, most of them Vietnam War-era veterans, would be eligible to participate if the ballot measure is passed, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

No one argues against Proposition 42 in the voter pamphlet. In the past, however, some critics have charged that veterans should not be singled out for special treatment, and that if they failed to make their mortgage payments, the bond debt would fall on the taxpayers.