Stopgap Jail Plan Is OKd for Santee; Council Vows Suit

Despite strong protests and threats of a lawsuit from Santee officials who bitterly objected to what they described as “a barbed wire concentration camp” in the center of their city, the San Diego County supervisors Wednesday approved construction of a temporary 600-bed men’s jail in Santee.

Envisioned as an interim answer to the county’s longstanding jail overcrowding problem, the barracks-style jail, expected to be built by late this year, will be next to the Las Colinas Jail for women.

Cost Put at $6.3 Million

The $6.3-million plan was approved by a 4-1 vote. Supervisor George Bailey, whose district includes the East County city, opposed it.

Though it is intended to alleviate a problem that has gradually grown in intensity in the 18 months since the supervisors declared a jail overcrowding crisis, Wednesday’s vote actually shifts the controversy to a new phase by setting the stage for a legal showdown between Santee and the county.

In reaction to the supervisors’ decision, the Santee City Council Wednesday night authorized the city attorney and the city manager to pursue any legal or administrative actions they deem appropriate to block construction of the jail.

The basis for the suit, Santee Mayor Jack Doyle explained, is a state law approved last year requiring that, under certain conditions, counties cannot “fast-track” jail construction--as in this case--within a city without the approval of its city council.

The possibility of legal delays was one factor cited by Bailey in his unsuccessful effort to persuade his colleagues that East Mesa--on Otay Mesa, where the county plans to build an 850-bed jail by 1989--would be a preferable location for the temporary cells. That approach, he said, would also let the county convert the temporary jail to a permanent honor camp when the East Mesa jail opened.

Legal Challenge Downplayed

But the other supervisors discounted the significance of Santee’s potential legal challenge and pointed out that water and sewer lines to East Mesa are not scheduled to be completed until next summer. Therefore, Bailey’s proposal would postpone the opening of the temporary jail by as much as one year--a delay that the other supervisors called unacceptable at a time when the inmate population in the county’s six jails is about 3,000, nearly double capacity.

“I regret that there is unhappiness, but . . . there is no time to wait another year to build more jail beds,” Supervisor Susan Golding said. “I feel we really have no choice. We have got to move.”

Supervisor Leon Williams added: “We can’t do the ideal thing--we have to do what we can do. It’s easy to say, ‘Well, go somewhere else.’ Everybody says, ‘Not in my backyard.’ Santee is the most efficacious way to solve this problem now.”

Such comments produced frequent groans from the nearly 100 Santee residents who arrived at the County Administration Center on with signs saying, among other things, “Free Santee,” “Don’t Put Santee Behind Barbed Wire” and “No Bad Guys in Santee.”

“It can hardly be said that we have not borne our share of regional responsibilities,” Mayor Doyle said, noting that Santee already houses Las Colinas, which is to be expanded by nearly 200 beds, the Edgemoor geriatric and mental hospital and a water-reclamation plant.

Other Santee officials and residents complained that the 600-bed jail will be near schools, houses and a senior center and that it will seriously undermine the city’s redevelopment efforts by placing what Doyle called a “concentration camp complete with barbed wire and armed watchtowers in the heart of our community.”

‘Not Dimwitted Hicks’

“The citizens of Santee are not the dimwitted hicks some of you think we are,” Santee resident Reed Newcomb angrily told the supervisors. “We will fight this every step of the way.”

Hoping to persuade supervisors to look elsewhere for a jail site, Doyle pledged to seek his council’s approval of a plan under which Santee would purchase the county land to be used for the jail for $1 million--money that could be used to build a jail outside Santee.

When the supervisors were not tempted by that offer, Doyle offered another alternative, saying that Santee was willing to fund an environmental impact report on the feasibility of putting the jail on county-owned land in Kearny Mesa.

Bailey argued that the study of the Kearny Mesa site would “give us something to fall back on” in the event that legal problems push back the Santee timetable. None of Bailey’s colleagues agreed with him, however, pointing out that exhaustive studies of alternative sites have already been conducted and warning that additional reports might simply produce new delays.

Supervisor Brian Bilbray said, “The glaring fact is . . . that more can be done at Las Colinas than anywhere else.”

Supervisors’ Exchange Heated

Bailey’s attempts to ensure that the Santee project will be used only on a temporary basis until permanent jails are built touched off a heated exchange with Bilbray.

To demonstrate the county’s “good faith,” Bailey asked the supervisors to flatly state that the Santee jail will be closed after the East Mesa jail opens, the Vista jail is expanded and a 500-to-1,000-bed jail at an undetermined location is built--projects that the county expects to complete by 1991.

“Why are you making promises without us knowing . . . what our needs are going to be (and) where the prisoners are going to go?” Bilbray asked, describing Bailey’s motion as an attempt to “just shift the burden from one community to another.”

“You’ve sat here for two hours making promises that this is temporary,” Bailey shot back. “Let’s give them something to hang their hat on. The citizens of Santee deserve some assurance that we don’t wait to the year 2010.”

Bailey also emphasized that East Mesa is in his district, a fact that he mentioned to indicate that he was not seeking to relocate the jail in another district.

Eventually, the supervisors unanimously approved a motion stating that it is their “intention” to close the temporary Santee facility after the East Mesa, expanded Vista jail and other detention facilities are opened, assuming that they meet the county’s criminal justice needs at the time.

That phraseology, however, appears to give the county some maneuvering room should jail needs outpace current projection and falls short of an iron-clad guarantee that the temporary jail will be in operation for only several years.

Last Shot Not Fired

Santee officials, meanwhile, predicted that Wednesday’s action will not be the last word on the issue. Far from worrying about when the temporary jail might close, they are not yet willing to concede that it will even open.

To expedite construction of the temporary jail, the supervisors voted to suspend competitive bid procedures--a step that Santee officials argue requires their approval. County Counsel Lloyd Harmon said he is uncertain whether county attorneys have studied that legal point, but he said that even if competitive bid procedures must be adhered to, it would not produce a lengthy delay.

“I’m just not sure how big the bark is,” Harmon said.

Santee City Councilman Jim Bartell, however, contends that the state public contracts law “gives us a solid case.”

“This isn’t over,” Doyle concluded. “The courts may have to decide this issue.”