Santee

A San Diego County Superior Court judge Monday declined to halt progress toward the construction in Santee of a temporary 600-bed men’s jail adjacent to the County Jail for women at Las Colinas.

Judge Andrew Wagner denied a request by the City of Santee for a temporary restraining order, saying that decisions about the facility scheduled to be made at today’s San Diego County Board of Supervisors meeting would not permanently affect the city’s bid to block construction of the new jail.

Wagner scheduled a hearing on the matter for Sept. 4.

Santee’s attorney, Donald F. McLean, claimed that the county has begun buying equipment to be used in the new jail without conducting an environmental impact review, as required by state law. He said that board reports show that “the ball has been hit and it’s on the way to the outfield.”

But Deputy County Counsel Lewis Zollinger told Wagner that the county had only appropriated money toward the planning of the project, and would conduct the review and hold hearings to determine the jail’s impact on the environment.

The $6.3-million barracks-style jail, approved by the supervisors July 8, is envisioned as an interim answer to the county’s longstanding jail overcrowding problem. When the new facility was approved last month, the county’s inmate population was about 3,000, nearly double capacity.