ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : A Jail Measure That Would Be a Crime

Proponents of Measure A on the June 5 ballot portray it as something that would promote efficiency in the criminal justice system. But Measure A is just another example of the not- in-my-back-yard syndrome.

It would require that any jail should be built in Santa Ana, near Orange County courts. It is being pushed by Anaheim Hills area residents who don’t want a jail built near them in Gypsum Canyon, the site selected by the Board of Supervisors three years ago. Passage of Measure A would not just preclude jail construction in Gypsum Canyon, however. It also would tie the hands of the Board of Supervisors in choosing any other site in the future. It is a bad idea.

For more than a decade, the county has been under a court order to resolve jail crowding, which has grown worse than ever. More than 50,000 suspected offenders have been released early because there weren’t enough jail spaces. But the board has been immobilized by the staggering costs of constructing and operating a jail, and by the controversy over its location. The county has spent $7 million on design work on the Gypsum Canyon site, which is owned by the Irvine Co., but is nowhere near acquiring it.

Measure A proponents have tried to scare people outside the Anaheim Hills area into supporting it by alluding to other possible jail sites that have been dismissed or never were in the running. They are on shakiest ground, however, when they argue that there would be added traffic and air pollution caused by the transport of jail inmates to court appearances in Santa Ana, the county seat.

Here the proponents contradict themselves: They have registered no complaints about a proposal to put a jail in a remote desert location in Riverside County. (By the way, County Counsel Adrian Kuyper says he believes that Measure A, if passed, would not preclude Riverside and Orange counties from forming a joint powers authority to build such a jail.)

Santa Ana Mayor Dan Young is blowing smoke around Measure A by accusing its proponents of bias and bigotry for trying to “dump” a jail on Santa Ana, where there is a large Latino population. Young is trying rhetoric where politics has failed: In response to Measure A, he made an unsuccessful attempt to put an initiative on the ballot that would have precluded a jail from being built in Santa Ana.

Nevertheless, Young is right in urging the defeat of Measure A. It would rob the Board of Supervisors of needed flexibility in dealing with an already-difficult issue.