Crowding, Decay Fuel Pasadena’s Jail Debate

It’s on the first workday after a three-day weekend--like last Tuesday, the day after Columbus Day--that you see all the telltale signs of overcrowding and decay in the Pasadena police building.

That’s when the fourth-floor jail is full to bursting after three days of aggressive police street activity to sop up the city’s accused thieves, muggers and drug peddlers, without any court hearings to move suspects along through the criminal justice system.

As Sgt. Tom Oldfield, the jail supervisor, put it: “It was a court holiday but not a crook holiday.”

On this day, Oldfield had just bid goodby to half of his 58 charges--15 above the 43-bed capacity of the jail--sending them off to court, and the lockup was finally settling into another morning of tedious tranquility.

Protective Plastic

Downstairs, though, things were just revving up.

On the third floor, directly below the adult cell blocks, clerks in the city prosecutor’s office were peeling plastic coverings off desk tops and duplicating machines. The plastic had been carefully fitted in place Friday afternoon to protect the office from possible showers of sewage from the antiquated overhead plumbing.

Explained Oldfield: “When you’re in an 8-by-7 room with nothing else to do, a favorite pastime is clogging the toilet.”

In a suite of offices down the hall, police officers were starting to drift in. This is where special units, like the crime-prevention program, are housed. In two small offices in the back, cops from the Neighborhood Crime Task Force were already staking claims on the few chairs and desks that fit into the space allotted to the unit.

“It really gets cozy here in the afternoon,” said Sgt. Wayne Hiltz. That’s when most of the 18-person complement arrives to start the day.

No Room to Work

“There’s virtually no space for people to write police reports,” said Hiltz. “You have to scurry around the building looking for unused typewriters.”

On especially busy days, said Cmdr. Richard Emerson, the first and second floors of the police station, jammed with crime victims and suspects, begin to look like a “Hill Street Blues” set.

As people are interviewed by investigators, he said, there are sometimes disoriented persons, awaiting examination by a psychiatric evaluation team, babbling incoherently in a ground-floor waiting area.

“Here’s a citizen complaining about being burglarized, while a few feet away somebody is yelling and screaming,” said Emerson.

The situation of overcrowding and disrepair in the big, square four-story building on Arroyo Parkway and Holly Street is precisely what city officials and civic leaders hope will be remedied by passage of Proposition AA on Nov. 4.

The ballot measure, proposing a $17-million general-obligation bond issue to pay for a new police station, ranks as “highest in importance” among city election issues this fall, says Mayor John Crowley.

Opponents, who rarely dispute the need for a new police station, say that there should be other remedies, less burdensome for property owners.

Unfair Bill

“They’re unfairly handing the bill for every last penny of this building to the property owners of Pasadena,” said William J. Fackler, head of a group called Pasadena on the Move.

Fackler and others contend that there are less costly ways of dealing with the problem than going into debt, like tapping existing capital funds and the proceeds from the sale of the present police station, which stands on prime real estate a few blocks from City Hall.

“I feel we’ve got a lot of support in town for our position,” said Fackler.

Crowley, for one, is optimistic about passage of the bond issue--which initially will cost property owners $42 a year per $100,000 of assessed valuation--despite a recent history in Pasadena of taxpayer resistance to new revenue-raising initiatives. A similar jail bond issue was defeated in 1984, missing the required two-thirds vote by about 8%.

Mistaken Impression

“One reason it wasn’t successful was because of an impression that it was a tax on water,” said Crowley. “A decision had been made to assess on the basis of who had a water meter and who didn’t.”

Last year, the city tried to form an assessment district to levy yearly fees to pay for street repairs, but the Board of Directors withdrew the initiative when hundreds of angry homeowners resisted.

But this year is different, proponents contend. Not only is there a clear and pressing need, said Crowley, but Pasadena residents have already put their votes on the line.

About 70% of the city’s voters in June approved Proposition 46, allowing municipalities to exceed the 1% limitation on property taxes through general obligation bonds with the backing of two-thirds of the voters. The statewide vote in favor of the measure was just 60%.

Recognizing the Need

“That suggests that the people of Pasadena recognize the need for relief in the area of finance,” Crowley said.

Opponents of the police station bond are just as vehement. For example, Fackler points out that the city has other pending obligations, including contributions to the police and firemen’s pension fund and for street repairs.

“This is just the first bond issue,” he said. “What about the other ones down the pike? If you add up two or three bond issues in three or four years, there’s going to be a whopping big tax bill for the next 20 years.”

At the same time, Fackler said, the city already has a capital fund of more than $17 million.

‘City Is Crying Broke’

“I say, wait a cotton-picking minute,” he said. “Why not use existing funds for this? The city is crying broke, yet they’re sitting there with more than $17 million.”

Crowley said that the city has no plans for further bond issues. Using the capital fund, he adds, would be more costly than borrowing funds.

“We’re doing the same as any businessman--conducting a businesslike operation,” Crowley said. “You borrow money to make money.”

On the other hand, Dale Wopschall, a member of the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors, says the city could avoid the expense of the new building altogether by adding a jail wing to the existing structure, freeing the space of the present jail for administrative offices.

“That would be a much less costly way to go,” Wopschall said. Such an approach was suggested in a feasibility study commissioned by the city in 1982.

‘Canyon Effect’

Wopschall also questions the selection of a site at Walnut Street and Garfield Avenue.

“They’re going to have helicopters landing 80 feet from the library,” he said. “Besides, a large structure like that will contribute to tunneling on Walnut Street. It will create a canyon effect.”

Undisputed is the fact that prisoners are being released daily because there is no place to house them.

According to Emerson, about 15 prisoners a week must be let go before arraignment, because of housing restrictions placed on the jail by a Los Angeles County grand jury. The released prisoners are issued citations directing them to return for scheduled hearings.

Mass Arrests

With only 43 beds allotted for prisoners, the jail is hard-pressed to keep up with all the drug suspects being hauled in nightly by Hiltz’s aggressive street-crime unit, which has arrested 2,610 people, most of them drug peddlers from the northwest part of town, since it began operations in September, 1985.

“On any given night, they might pick up 15 or 20 people,” said Emerson. “That can put us over the 43-person maximum right there. The sad part is that citizens see us take someone to jail for selling drugs, then they’re back out on the street a couple of hours later.”

The alternatives are either to violate the restrictions on the number of prisoners who can be held, as the police did last weekend, or to release prisoners.

Adding to the problem, said Emerson, is county Sheriff Sherman Block’s advisory last March that the county jail, facing a serious overcrowding problem of its own, no longer would be able to take the prisoner spill-over from Pasadena and other cities.

Assurance of Freedom

Police acknowledge that many of their prisoners would be freed under any circumstances, once they are arraigned and bail is set for them.

“We’re not supposed to keep them for more than 48 hours,” Emerson said.

The problem is, he added, once a suspect leaves custody with nothing but a citation to keep him in the grasp of the criminal justice system, he may ignore efforts to bring him to court.

An even more serious potential problem is the question of the building’s earthquake readiness, city officials say.

According to a study by a Caltech earthquake-engineering expert, an earthquake of 7.0 on the Richter scale would cripple operations in the building, incapacitating police emergency radio equipment housed on the ground floor.

‘Won’t Have This Building’

“It means that, in a rescue operation after an earthquake, we won’t have this building,” said Emerson. “All the plaster will mess up the dispatch system, so we’ll have to move out of the building and use portable radios. But it’s not very efficient. You have to be very efficient after an earthquake.”

The city’s idea is to build a new facility, with almost twice the floor space, at Walnut Street and Garfield Avenue. When the new three-story building with an underground jail is ready in three or four years, officials say, the old one will either be sold or leased, with some of the proceeds going to help pay off the bond obligation.

The plan avoids some major expenses that other proposals call for, city officials say. Rehabilitating the existing facility, for example, would require a major expenditure on a temporary police station, Crowley said.

John B. Wells, co-chairman of Volunteers for a Safer Pasadena, a citizens group that supports Proposition AA, says that the bond issue is the least expensive way to solve the problem, especially as interest rates currently are low.

Building Up Fund

“On the current market, the issue should go for about 7%,” he said. “That’s about 2 points less than we’re getting on our investments.”

He said that the plan has the added advantage of building up the city’s capital fund. The city estimates that the site of the old building can be sold for $3.5 million, which would provide investment income to help pay other obligations.

“It’s like an endowment fund for the capital needs of the city,” Wells said.

Fackler, on the other hand, argues that the city should use existing funds to finance the new structure.

“Why not take half the capital fund, use it as collateral for a short-term loan until they can sell the old one?” he said. “I’m not objecting to the jail itself. But let’s spend capital-improvement funds for capital improvements.”