LOCAL ELECTIONS : Jail Initiative Fails; Dead Heat in Irvine : Initiative: Drive to confine all new facilities to Santa Ana losing by 2 to 1 in early returns. A proposed Riverside County alternative hurt its momentum.

Voters Tuesday were soundly defeating a controversial measure that would have confined all future Orange County jails to Santa Ana.

Measure A, the Centralized Jail Initiative, was backed by residents of Anaheim Hills and Yorba Linda who opposed the county’s proposal to locate a 6,700-bed facility in unincorporated Gypsum Canyon.

Outraged Santa Ana residents called the measure thinly veiled racism.

The initiative, which qualified for the ballot with more than 100,000 signatures, appeared to have much of its momentum sapped, however, after county officials broached the idea of building a jail in the Riverside County desert.

As early returns showed the measure trailing by nearly 2 to 1, Santa Ana Mayor Daniel H. Young huddled with “No on A” supporters at the home of a Santa Ana planning commissioner. Young said the tally “shows that voters are able to figure a complex issue like this.”

Added Supervisor Roger R. Stanton: “The measure basically said, ‘Let’s dump everything in Santa Ana,’ and that was totally distasteful.”

Rick Violett, the Yorba Linda homeowner who heads the “Yes on A” forces, said that supporters of the measure considered themselves underdogs all along.

“I really have no feeling right now,” said Violett, after reviewing early returns. Despite “our lack of money,” he said, supporters gave the campaign “a good shot.”

It is almost certain that some new jail facility for Orange County will be built in the near future because the county is under court order to relieve jail overcrowding and improve inmates’ living conditions.

In 1987, the Board of Supervisors proposed that a jail be built on 3,200 acres in unincorporated Gypsum Canyon, a remote area neighboring Riverside County.

Measure A proponents argued that it would be more cost-effective to keep prisoners near the courts in Santa Ana.

The group, Taxpayers for a Centralized Jail, reasoned that besides the saving on transportation costs, a jail facility would be more appropriately located in an urban setting.

On the ballot, the measure asked if all future jails should be built in the county seat, but it did not mention Santa Ana by name.

Nevertheless, the measure had been criticized as being racist because it would place all future jails in a mostly Latino community and would require tearing down scarce low-cost housing. City officials argued that passage of Measure A would delay construction of any new jail because the county would have to change its plans to accommodate a Santa Ana site. The county has already spent more than $6 million evaluating locations and developing plans for the Gypsum Canyon site.

Both proponents and opponents agreed that whatever appeal Measure A carried for residents outside of Santa Ana was diluted by a proposal by Supervisor Don R. Roth to locate the jail outside the county.

Although staff from Orange and Riverside counties are studying the proposal, no details have been worked out.