Santee Has Done Duty

Recently, attention has been called to the Las Colinas facility in Santee as the optimal solution to the county’s jail overcrowding crisis. In reality, this site is neither optimal nor a solution to the county’s impending problems in funding jail facilities. The site is inappropriate for several reasons.

First, Las Colinas lies in the heart of the Town Center redevelopment project area--706 acres along the San Diego River which is destined to be the commercial hub of Santee. It virtually represents the economic future of this young city.

Second, the 371 acres that the county staff has so generously offered up to the Board of Supervisors for jail purposes comprises the entire county property ownership in Town Center. This includes the existing Las Colinas facility, the entire Edgemoor Hospital complex, the Historic Polo Barn property, a future school site and 132 acres within the 100-year flood plain requiring significant mitigation measures. After deducting the existing and planned facilities and the Specific Plan designations for flood ways, new streets, parklands and open space, this leaves approximately 80 scattered acres, which would barely begin to address the county’s burgeoning needs for adequate jail facilities. The figure of 371 acres is not only erroneous, but also seriously misleading.

The current Las Colinas facility is within one-third mile of an elementary school and residential housing. It is within one mile of five other elementary schools, a high school, two child care centers, and six mobile home parks. This would hardly seem the “optimal site” for additional jail facilities, and casts serious doubts upon the criteria being used for site selection.

Placing a jail in Santee’s Town Center does not even make good business sense. One of the primary problems being faced by the county in the jail crisis is inadequate revenue generation. Yet the county’s only solution is to commit prime acreage in Town Center for jail purposes, when this prime land in Town Center will cost the county several million dollars in future lost revenues.

The City of Santee has always recognized its responsibility in addressing regional needs. The city is already host to the Las Colinas Women’s Detention Facility, a county mental facility at Edgemoor, and a water reclamation facility at Santee Lakes. It can hardly be said that Santee has not borne its share of regional responsibilities. In fact, we’ve done much more than most to aid the region.

JACK DOYLE

Mayor of Santee