Remote Jail Savings of $70 Million Seen : Foes of Proposed Anaheim Facility Cite Lower Rural Land Costs

Opponents of a proposed jail near Anaheim Stadium released a study Tuesday that concludes the county could save more than $70 million over 20 years if it builds the jail at a remote site instead.

The study says that rural property is less costly and that construction of a sprawling low-rise jail facility would be cheaper than building a high-rise jail in an urban setting.

The fact that the county already owns the proposed site alongside the Santa Ana River is irrelevant, an author of the study said. As prime real estate in Anaheim, the site could be put to a better use or sold and the profit used to buy more land in remote areas of the county, said Jim Steinmann of Steinmann Grayson Smylie, the Los Angeles-based firm that prepared the report.

“Any urban solution is more expensive than a rural solution,” Steinmann said. “The Katella-Douglass site is not a cost-effective, long-range . . . solution.”

The $50,000 study was financed by the Jail Action Committee, a group of Anaheim residents and businesses including representatives of the California Angels, Los Angeles Rams and Disneyland. Committee spokesman Bud Smull said the group will present the study to the Board of Supervisors next week, when the board will hold a public hearing on the proposed jail.

The board voted 4 to 1 last March to build a 1,500-inmate, maximum-security jail on 7.7 acres of county-owned land at the intersection of Katella Avenue and Douglass Road--just across the Orange Freeway from Anaheim Stadium.

Fast Interim Solution

It was proposed as an interim “fast-track” solution to severe overcrowding in the existing County Jail, in recognition of length of time required to choose a remote site for a planned 6,000-bed jail. Despite years of studies for such a remote jail, supervisors have been unable to agree on various sites because of community opposition.

It also came in response to a federal judge, who earlier in 1985 had found the supervisors and Sheriff Brad Gates in contempt for failing to comply with his 1978 order to provide a bunk for each inmate. And last March 18, U.S. District Judge William P. Gray also fined the county $10 a day for each inmate who had to sleep on the floor past the first 24 hours because of overcrowding.

Currently, the limit on inmates at the men’s jail is 1,400 on weekdays, and 1,450 on weekends. Tuesday’s population was 1,390.

As an alternative to building a jail in Anaheim, the committee suggested expanding existing branch facilities in Orange and El Toro to accommodate prisoners awaiting trial or sentencing and building a new jail at a remote site, probably in southeastern Orange County.

Supervisor Roger R. Stanton, who voted for the Anaheim project, said he, too, would rather see a jail built in a rural area than in an urban setting.

But he said: “It was beyond a simple decision that we could make. It was between one of two sites in Santa Ana, and one of two sites in Anaheim. My preference was none of those sites. We chose the site with the fewest number of people surrounding it.”