Desert Jail Too Costly, County Report Advises : Law enforcement: The study endorses the Gypsum Canyon site but fails to address the local and political opposition to it. The county seems to be back at Square One.

A proposed desert jail, long touted by Supervisor Don R. Roth as the solution to the county’s skyrocketing inmate population, would be 10 times more expensive to operate than a local facility and should be dropped from consideration, according to a county report released Monday.

Land values in the Riverside County desert near Indio are cheaper than the leading local site--a hotly contested area known as Gypsum Canyon, just east of Anaheim. But development and operation of the desert facility would make it more expensive almost immediately, according to the report, prepared by the county administrative office and an advisory committee consisting of members from various county departments and agencies.

“The Chiricao Summit site, or any other similar remote site, should not be pursued further,” said the report, which took 10 months to prepare. “Issues such as transportation and increased utilities demand (such as air conditioning and heating) result in an annual difference . . . of $10 million between the two sites. The long-term cost of this difference is staggering.”

The report had long been expected to raise questions about the desert site, but supporters of the idea were stunned by its stinging denunciation of the proposal.

Moreover, while the report brusquely dismisses the notion of pursuing the Chiricao Summit facility, it does little to address powerful local opposition to building a jail in Gypsum Canyon. In effect, that leaves the county just where it was when it embarked on the search for a new jail years ago: There still is no consensus on where to put a new jail, and there still is no money to pay for one.

Despite a court order demanding that the county relieve jail overcrowding at the Santa Ana Main Jail, county residents show little enthusiasm for taxing themselves to build a facility inside the county. One recent poll showed that only 37% of county residents backed such a measure, compared to 50% who opposed it.

Sentiment also is frozen among the supervisors. Board members Roth and Gaddi H. Vasquez have said they intend to vote against any proposal that would condemn Gypsum Canyon land for a jail, and with four of the board’s five members needed to approve such an action, the idea appears dead in the water. Vasquez reiterated his opposition to Gypsum Canyon on Monday, and Roth did so late last week.

And though the report specifically endorses Gypsum Canyon as “the most appropriate and expedient site,” few officials believe that it will dislodge the political and local opposition.

“This report does absolutely nothing to advance Gypsum Canyon as a potential site,” said Dan Wooldridge, an aide to Roth. “All it does is cast some doubts on the only idea that has captured the imagination of the people of this county.”

Although Roth was unavailable for comment Monday, Wooldridge said the supervisor was “deeply disappointed” in the staff report and believes that many of its findings are incorrect. In particular, Wooldridge said, Roth is dismayed by what he considers overestimates of services needed to operate the proposed Chiricao Summit facility.

“The report talks about building a whole hospital out there to serve this jail,” Wooldridge said. “It’s a lot cheaper just to buy a helicopter and use it to get people in and out of there.”

In addition, Wooldridge said the report underestimates the land values in Gypsum Canyon. The report puts the value of 2,700 acres in the canyon at $15 million, compared to $8 million to acquire 1,100 acres in the desert.

“If you or I could go and buy Gypsum Canyon for $17 million, we should go work for Donald Trump because we could bail him out of trouble,” Wooldridge said. Roth has estimated the cost of buying and developing the Gypsum Canyon land, now owned by the Irvine Co. and slated to become a residential community, at more than $1 billion.

In addition to analyzing land-acquisition costs, the report addresses an array of costs that it says would be markedly higher in the desert.

Utilities such as water and sewers would require extensive site work, and the air conditioning and heating system alone would cost $11 million to install, according to the report.

Transportation to and from the remote jail, which would be located 156 miles from Santa Ana, is also predicted to be dramatically more expensive than the Gypsum Canyon site. The report estimates that transportation expenses would top $6.3 million a year, compared to $806,000 at the closer location.

Computed over a 30-year period, the differences in paying for the two facilities become overwhelming, the study found. During that time, the county could expect to pay an operations bill of more than $264 million for the desert facility.