Turf War Blamed in Death of Bill for Jail Sales Tax

Orange County officials are blaming an escalating turf war over locating a proposed new jail for the apparent demise of legislation to let voters consider a half-cent sales tax increase to raise money for new jail and court facilities.

Saying the issue is “all but dead,” state Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) this week withdrew her bill to allow Orange County supervisors to seek the half-cent tax increase, aimed at providing $100 million a year to relieve overcrowding in jails and courts. She took the action rather than accept an amendment to protect the city of Santa Ana.

Faced with a list of $1 billion worth of criminal justice and jail projects, county officials had hoped to ask county voters next year to approve such a tax. To do that,

they needed passage of Bergeson’s bill.

Bergeson withdrew the bill when state Sen. Art Torres (R-Los Angeles), during a subcommittee hearing, offered an amendment sought by Santa Ana officials that would have banned construction of any jail within 1 mile of a school. There are about seven schools within a mile of downtown Santa Ana and the Civic Center area.

Objection to Amendment

Santa Ana city officials had sought the amendment to counter a countywide ballot measure that will ask voters to require that all new jails be located in Santa Ana. That initiative was sponsored by Anaheim Hills residents who oppose a county jail planned for Gypsum Canyon in eastern Orange County.

Bergeson said she strongly objected to the proposed Santa Ana amendment because it would have put the Legislature “in the business” of deciding where a jail should be built, a matter she contended should be dealt with by local, not state, officials.

“It is a politically sensitive issue, but one that the (county) supervisors are going to have to work out,” Bergeson said in a telephone interview from Sacramento. She said it is unlikely that she will reintroduce the bill this year.

Nonetheless, Board of Supervisors Chairman Thomas F. Riley said Wednesday that his office has initiated informal discussions about how to revive Bergeson’s bill and salvage plans to put the proposed sales tax increase for jail and court construction on the ballot in 1990.

If such a measure were approved by voters, it would generate about $100 million a year, county officials estimate. There is no shortage of uses for that money. Foremost are the need to relieve jail overcrowding by expanding current facilities at Theo Lacy branch jail in Orange and construction of new facilities at proposed sites near Anaheim Stadium and in Gypsum Canyon. The three projects would cost about $434 million. In addition, the county has plans to build a new $250-million courthouse in Santa Ana and to expand outlying Municipal Court facilities.

‘Seed’ Money

Although the money generated by such a sales tax would cover only part of the county’s needs, officials say it would be vital “seed” money necessary to launch many of those projects. Thus, Bergeson’s decision to withdraw her bill is viewed as a setback.

“It’s very, very disappointing,” Orange County Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates said Wednesday. “Jails and drugs are the two most important issues in this county. We don’t have a place to put criminals, and that means a lot of them are on the streets, which translates into an unsafe community.”

Gates, a leading proponent of the half-cent sales tax increase for jail construction, predicted that voters would support the measure.

“But we have to give them a chance,” he said. “At some point, we’ve got to stop acting like politicians and start acting like mothers and fathers who are concerned about the welfare of our children. How can we protect those children if we don’t have the facilities to lock the criminals away? Yet we continue to fight over where to put this jail.”

Officials say Bergeson’s bill is the latest casualty in the widening controversy over where to build county jails.

The sheriff and the Board of Supervisors are under a federal court order to relieve overcrowding at the county’s central jail in Santa Ana, where a daily average of 4,500 inmates are housed in a facility built for 3,200. Gypsum Canyon, northeast of Anaheim and near the Riverside Freeway, has been named by a divided Board of Supervisors as the preferred site for a new jail.

Since then, angry Anaheim Hills residents have succeeded in gathering enough signatures to place on the ballot the Taxpayers for a Centralized Jail initiative, which would mandate construction of all new jails in Santa Ana and presumably would block the planned Gypsum Canyon facility.

Torres Carries Fight

To protect against passage of that initiative, Santa Ana City Councilman Miguel A. Pulido said, city officials lobbied to amend Bergeson’s legislation when it was considered Tuesday by the Senate Judiciary subcommittee. A member of the subcommittee, Torres, a powerful East Los Angeles Democrat who has battled efforts by the state to build a maximum-security prison in his predominantly Latino district, introduced the amendment on behalf of Santa Ana officials.