Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS : COUNTY : Sheriff Will Seek Raise in Jail Population Limit

Even though authorities are turning loose nearly everyone arrested on suspicion of committing a misdemeanor, the County Jail once again is about to runneth over, according to Sheriff Brad Gates.

Gates is asking a federal judge to raise the population ceiling at the main jail, but stopgap measures are also needed, he said.

“We’re in serious trouble,” Gates said. “If we don’t do something soon, we won’t be able to comply with the judge’s order.”

U.S. District Judge William P. Gray has ordered Gates not to exceed a 1,400-population ceiling at the main men’s jail in Santa Ana.

Gates said he will soon ask Gray to raise that limit to 1,481, which matches the number of beds now at the jail.

Gates earlier had written a letter to the Board of Supervisors warning them that there was an “immediate need” for another 300 maximum-security beds and that the county could end up in violation of Gray’s orders on jail overcrowding without them.

But three supervisors, in interviews, said they were dissatisfied.

Bruce Nestande questioned whether Gates was “posturing,” and Harriett Wieder was upset that Gates seemed to be dumping the problem in the board’s lap. “On the one hand, (Gates) does not want us to tell him how to run his jail,” Wieder said. “ . . . And on the other hand, he asks us what to do” about overcrowding.

Thomas F. Riley questioned whether it was possible to provide Gates with an immediate solution. “When you’re talking about bricks and mortar, that doesn’t just happen overnight,” Riley said.

In addition to the weekday population ceiling of 1,400, Gray, who has been overseeing Orange County’s jail conditions for 1 1/2 years, has set a limit on the main men’s jail population of 1,450 on weekends and 1,500 on three-day holidays.

The population one day last week was 1,395.

Gates said in an interview that “obviously some kind of facility will have to be rented, or leased, immediately. We recognize you can’t build a facility overnight.”