Politics, Money Stand in the Way of New Jail

For years, three of the five members of the Orange County Board of Supervisors have been on record saying that the solution to the county’s jail overcrowding crisis is a huge new facility in Gypsum Canyon. So why haven’t they built it?

The answers are as simple as the issue is complicated: politics and money. The two supervisors who oppose Gypsum Canyon are enough to block a special vote to condemn the property and acquire the land. They don’t want the new jail in or near their districts--that’s the political side.

When it comes to money, the problem is more complex. But it, too, starts with a simple truism: A new jail big enough to alleviate overcrowding could cost upwards of a billion dollars, and there’s no ready source of money in Orange County or in Sacramento.

In the County Hall of Administration, there is talk of jails in Gypsum Canyon, jails in the desert, even a jail next to the James A. Musick Branch Jail near El Toro. There are proposals for bond issues, sales tax increases, even an unusual plan to combine a jail with a landfill and pay for it with higher garbage rates. Yet there is little that policy-makers can agree on.

“This is a serious problem, probably the single greatest challenge facing local governments out there,” said Neil Zinn, a field representative with the state Board of Corrections. “If I had the answer to it, I wouldn’t be sitting at this desk. I’d be far higher up in government.”

Some observers urge the county to wean itself of over-reliance on jails. Judges must be more creative in sentencing, they say, and send more prisoners to treatment centers and work programs. Expand the use of new technology such as electronic bracelets that can monitor a criminal’s whereabouts, they add.

All that is fine, many county officials reply, but it is not enough: the jails are way overcrowded now and getting worse. As a result, the hunt for a site likely will go on until the county builds a jail--maybe more than one.

For the moment, two locations lead the pack of likely contenders--Gypsum Canyon, a barren box canyon about 10 miles east of Anaheim; and Chiriaco Summit, which could be any one of several possible sites deep in Riverside County desert, more than 100 miles from the Orange County Courthouse in Santa Ana.

The Gypsum Canyon option:

To build in Gypsum Canyon, the county practically would need to stumble upon a treasure chest. Estimates vary widely, but a study scheduled for release next month is expected to say that operating the facility could cost as much as $135 million a year--just a tad less than the entire Sheriff’s Department budget.

Even bigger will be the cost of acquiring the land. The Irvine Co. owns Gypsum Canyon and already has plans for a 10,500-unit housing development there that would include a shopping mall, schools and parks. Irvine Co. officials decline to speculate on how much they believe that the canyon land is worth, but a spokeswoman recently noted that “residential land in Orange County . . . generally goes for close to $1 million an acre.”

Depending on how much land the county needed, that could mean that it would face a bill of between $300 million and $1 billion. There is no money in the county budget to absorb such an expense, and countywide polls show that county voters are unlikely to agree to higher taxes so that they can build a jail in their own back yard.

Faced with that kind of bill, some planners have developed a novel idea: The land would be condemned for a landfill as well as a jail, and then the two facilities would share the site. That would allow part of the land purchase to be paid for through the county’s “waste enterprise fund” and recovered through higher trash collection fees to residents.

Whether such a move is even legal, however, is an open question.

“Can you imagine the uproar if people have to pay for a jail in their back yard by paying more for their garbage to be picked up?” asked Dan Wooldridge, an aide to Supervisor Don R. Roth and longtime county jail expert. “There’s just no way.”

Still, the solution remains much talked about, and Sheriff Brad Gates frequently cites it as the answer to the purchase problems.

Jail experts outside Orange County also are intrigued by the idea, if not altogether convinced that it would fly. Dick Simpson, research analyst with the County Supervisors Assn. of California, chuckled when the notion was described to him and said he has not heard of any other county attempting such a thing.

“That sounds rather creative to me,” Simpson said. “I’d like to see if they can do it.”

The Chiriaco Summit option:

Convinced for his part that such an action would never pass legal or political muster, Roth instead has tried to steer his colleagues toward the sparsely populated desert, where the acquisition price tag would be smaller and the politics smoother.

According to Roth’s plan, a desert jail in Riverside County might win what Gypsum Canyon cannot: widespread support from county voters. Indeed, voters have shown a preference in polls for a jail built far away, and they have been equally clear in saying that they oppose a sales tax increase for a jail built inside the county.

That a sales tax--even for a jail far away--would pass in conservative Orange County is questionable. San Diego narrowly approved a sales tax hike to build jails in that county, and though a group of county taxpayers sued to block the measure, an appellate court recently ruled in favor of the tax’s backers. The judges ruled that only a simple majority was needed, not the two-thirds margin claimed by the plaintiffs.

If that decision stands, it would mean that Orange County proponents of a sales tax for jails would only need a majority to win--and that majority would undoubtedly be easier to get for a desert jail than a local one.

Still, a different set of financial problems dogs the desert jail. A recent county administrative office study of the proposal dismissed it outright after finding that transportation, heating and air conditioning costs would be exorbitant.

Roth and other officials considered that study badly flawed, however, and sent it back for more work.

If both Gypsum Canyon and Chiriaco Summit remain hogtied, expansion at the James Musick site remains a possibility. The county owns that land, which would make it much cheaper than Gypsum Canyon to develop. It would require years of preparation, however, and would hit all the same political roadblocks that make Gypsum Canyon difficult.

As the county struggles for a site that could win taxpayer support, one thing is clear: Little help will be forthcoming from the state. A recent statewide bond measure for jail construction failed, leaving the state with little money to offer.

That leaves the county in a jam, and so far no solution has emerged.

“In almost every jurisdiction where they have overcrowding, officials will say to us, ‘We’ve tried everything,’ ” said Alan Henry, executive director of the nonprofit Pretrial Services Resource Center, a Washington group that has worked with governments across the country on jail overcrowding.

“They may have tried everything, but usually they haven’t implemented each of their things as well as they could,” Henry added. “They often find that they don’t have any choice but to come up with the money. It’s either pay now or pay later.”

Times staff writer Maria Newman contributed to this report.