Jail Plan Would Add Beds for 1,000 Inmates : Expansion: Supervisor John K. Flynn proposes using existing funds to ease crowding at county facilities and create a special program for drug offenders.

A plan to build a $19-million, 450-bed expansion of the jail at the county government center, expand other corrections programs and create a separate facility for inmates convicted of drug-related offenses was proposed Monday by Supervisor John K. Flynn.

Most of the plan could be built without additional revenue and would eliminate the need to build a larger and more expensive facility on any of five controversial rural sites now under consideration by the board, Flynn said. The existing jail holds almost three times its 400-inmate capacity.

“This plan would allow us to get our beds much sooner,” Flynn said, adding that expansion of existing facilities would avoid delays while public hearings are held on rural sites, all of which are opposed by nearby cities or residents.

Flynn said the county cannot afford to build a jail at a new site because voters will not support a half-cent sales tax that would be needed to pay for construction. A new jail at one of the rural sites is supported by Ventura County Sheriff John Gillespie and other supervisors.

“If we do the present plan, we will have to take that money from somewhere, and it will probably be from social services,” Flynn said.

Flynn said his plan would provide 700 new beds for county inmates. An additional 300 beds would be provided without any funding specified.

It was Flynn’s most recent proposal to cope with the county’s burgeoning inmate population on a limited budget. His fellow supervisors rejected a similar plan Flynn proposed last year, and none contacted Monday supported the expanded jail at the county government center.

“You’re purely warehousing people,” Supervisor Susan K. Lacey said of a several-story building with no grounds for outdoor exercise, work or rehabilitation programs.

County officials had hoped to finance, with a half-cent sales tax, an 800-inmate jail to be built on 100 rural acres. But county officials later learned that a two-thirds voter majority would be required for passage of the tax proposal--a margin considered highly unlikely. Officials are now considering a scaled-back jail with 400 beds, to be built with existing revenue.

Gillespie and other supervisors favor a rural site where the jail can be expanded over 20 years.

Supervisors are expected to choose one of the five sites within the next three months. An environmental impact report released in January selected a county-owned site on Toland Road east of Santa Paula as the preferred location.

Other sites considered include one at Todd Road, southwest of Santa Paula; Pancho Road, south of Camarillo and east of the Camarillo State Hospital; Potrero Road, farther south along the coast, and Hueneme Road, east of the city of Port Hueneme.

County predictions show that by 2010 the county will have 2,800 more prisoners than beds if nothing is done.

Flynn’s plan would allow the county to solve its problems without incurring more debt that the county cannot afford to repay, Flynn said.

In Flynn’s plan, the county’s existing $41 million would pay for the $19-million, 450-bed jail in Ventura, the 100-bed expansion of the county’s Honor Farm in Ojai for $4.2 million, the 100-bed expansion of the Rose Valley facility for $4.2 million, the 50-bed addition to the East County building near Simi Valley for $2.1 million, and the renovation of a former jail building in Oxnard to provide 26 more beds for about $1 million.

The plan includes no funding, however, for Flynn’s proposals to build and develop a drug-treatment facility, add 300 beds to the work furlough program at the Camarillo Airport or build a $10-million parking garage at the county government center that would be necessary if the new jail were built there.

Three of four fellow supervisors criticized Flynn’s plan for a four-story building next to the existing jail as too costly and too short-sighted. But they endorsed his efforts to segregate drug offenders, many of whom are nonviolent and do not need the expensive confinement of a jail cell.

“Drug offenders could be housed in a less severe setting,” said Supervisor James Dougherty.

A facility where inmates would receive drug treatment or rehabilitation could ultimately decrease the influx of new inmates, 60% of whom are now jailed for drug-related offenses, said Supervisor Maggie Erickson, who supports Flynn’s plan to finance the program with funds from President Bush’s “war on drugs” program.

“When you spread the net wider to slow down the sale and use of drugs, that brings more people into our jails,” she said. “The feds have money available to help with that.”

JAIL EXPANSION PLAN

1. Work Camp: Add 100 beds to existing 90.

2. Honor Farm: Add 100 beds to exiting 241.

3. Ventura County Jail: Add new building with 450 beds to existing 400-bed facility; new 1,000-space parking structure.

4. Work Furlough Facility: Add 300 beds to existing 300.

5. East Valley Law Enforcement Facility: Add 500 beds to existing 20.