Local Elections : Odds Still Against Vote on Sales Tax Hike to Build New Jails, Courts

Six months ago, Supervisor Brian Bilbray assessed the odds of Proposition A winning passage on Nov. 4. He described them as being little better than “a snowball’s chance in hell.”

And with only a little more than a week to go before election day, Bilbray’s view hasn’t changed much.

“I wouldn’t plan on sailing a lifeboat across the Atlantic, but if you don’t have anything else to sit in, you don’t have much choice,” Bilbray said. “I see this as a law-and-order lifeboat.”

If that’s the case, Bilbray and his colleagues had better start sending up the emergency flares. Proposition A, which would increase the sales tax by half a penny per dollar to fund new courts and jails, needs approval from two-thirds of the voters for passage, a difficult prospect that has reduced even some of the measure’s strongest supporters to wishful thinking.

Proposition A, after all, didn’t even get the votes of two-thirds of the Board of Supervisors, which placed it on the ballot. Susan Golding and Paul Eckert voted against it.

Bilbray, for example, said he hopes that voters turning out to oppose California Chief Justice Rose Bird would also vote for Proposition A, pushing the measure over the top.

Supervisor George Bailey, who proposed the measure, notes that the last three local propositions designated by the letter A have been successful--maybe this one will find the same result.

Bailey even found a bright spot while acknowledging that the groundswell of support he expected for Proposition A hasn’t fully materialized.

“At least there’s been no groundswell of opposition, either,” he said.

Bailey came up with the idea to increase the sales tax when the county was struggling earlier this year to find $420 million to build the jails and courthouses that county analysts say are needed through the year 2005. He believes the temporary sales tax is a better plan than borrowing the money through the issuance of bonds.

“This way, we won’t saddle our children and grandchildren with years of debt,” he said. Instead, the money would be raised over five years and spent for the new buildings. Then, the sales tax increase would expire.

Bailey helped put together the campaign for Proposition A, enlisting the support of Sheriff John Duffy, Police Chief Bill Kolender, and Norma Phillips, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, among others.

Bailey has been campaigning for weeks, talking to every civic and service group that will have him. His message: The county needs more money for new jails and courthouses to satisfy the public’s thirst for law and order.

If the public wants to lock up more drunken drivers and drug pushers, Bailey says, then the voters had better be willing to spend the money to build the jails needed to house all these criminals.

“This certainly fits in with the war on drugs,” he said in an interview, repeating the refrain he’s been using all over town. “You can educate your kid as long as you want, but as long as you turn the pushers loose on the streets, they’re going to get him.”

Organized opposition to Proposition A has been limited to a few Libertarians and former San Diego City Councilman Fred Schnaubelt, who opposes almost every government spending proposal.

Schnaubelt said he agrees that more jails are needed. But he suggests that the county pay for them out of general revenues and “put the frills on the ballot instead.”

Dick Rider, a financial planner and Libertarian candidate for Congress, said the supervisors are to blame for allowing the jail overcrowding to become a crisis before acting to solve the problem.

“There’s no more important function of government than protecting citizens from criminals, which means providing police, courts and jails,” Rider said. “The government has been remiss in keeping the number of jail beds in step with the number of criminals. We should be building the jails out of general revenues as we go along.”

Actually, the county has been building jails, but just hasn’t been building them big enough.

Since 1979, the county has opened regional jails in Vista, El Cajon and Chula Vista. The Vista jail was designed for 246 inmates but has been averaging more than 370. El Cajon was meant for 120 but routinely houses more than 365. The South Bay jail in Chula Vista was designed for 192 but often has more than 600 inmates.

Since 1984, the downtown jail has been under court order to hold no more than 750 inmates.

To try to avoid further overcrowding, the county has implemented several measures to provide alternatives to jail sentences for the least-dangerous inmates. Some are allowed to work during the day and to return to custody at night. Others are free during the week but report to jail work camps for the weekends.

Recently, the county began an experiment in home custody, allowing some convicts to serve their sentences at home with transmitters attached to their bodies to ensure that they don’t leave the premises.

Even with these alternatives, however, hundreds of people who are arrested each month never make it to a jail cell. Instead, they are turned away at the door after their backgrounds are reviewed and they promise to appear in court. Judges have complained that many of those who are convicted of minor crimes serve so little time behind bars that jail has ceased to be a deterrent for them.

The judges are further angered by the fact that six Superior Court judgeships allocated to San Diego more than a year ago have yet to be filled because there are no courtrooms to house them.

But county officials say all of these problems would be solved by the passage of Proposition A, which they say would raise a minimum of $75 million a year for five years.

Here’s the county’s latest plan for spending the money:

- $210 million for courthouses to provide space for 58 new judges and support staff, including expansions of the Vista, South Bay and East County courthouses and the construction of an annex or high-rise next to the existing courthouse in downtown San Diego.

- $180 million for 1,800 new maximum- and medium-security jail beds;

- $24 million for 900 probation honor camp beds;

- $6 million for 90 juvenile detention beds.

“This gives people a chance to decide for themselves,” said Dorothy Migdal, vice president for local government affairs at the San Diego Chamber of Commerce and a Proposition A supporter. “They say they want law and order, they want criminals in jail, quicker justice. Put it on the ballot and allow people to have a say. If they defeat it, the people have spoken.”