Judge Urges County to Ante Up to Open East Mesa Jail : Incarceration: Construction is almost complete on the expected cure to the crowded county jail system, but the county lacks funds to operate the facility.

Construction of the first phase of the East Mesa jail, widely seen as the cure for the county’s jammed jails, is nearly complete, but no funds are in sight to open it, a county lawyer told a Superior Court judge Tuesday.

El Cajon Superior Court Judge James Malkus, who has been monitoring the crowded jails under two lawsuits brought against the county by the American Civil Liberties Union, urged county officials to find the funds, one way or another.

Though the county reported Tuesday that the jails essentially have met court-ordered limits on inmate totals for months, the annual swell in inmates that comes with summer is around the corner, and there is no way around the court-ordered caps, Malkus said.

“It does not make sense to have a multimillion-dollar structure, which is nearly complete, in a vacant status,” Malkus said. “But perhaps the Board of Supervisors knows better.” Malkus has no authority to open the doors of the 784-bed East Mesa jail, situated near the U.S.-Mexico border and 7 miles east of Interstate 805.

But, in hearings last year, Malkus ordered the county to cut the number of inmates downtown to 750 and to bring the entire system to 3,829. The ACLU suits alleged crowding at the downtown jail and the five outlying jails.

Malkus allowed the county to exclude from the count hundreds of inmates on the fringe of the general jail population, including prisoners in certain medical beds, those pending release or in transit between jails.

With five exceptions over the past 10 days, the county has met those adjusted limits since early December, Malkus was told Tuesday by attorney Alex Landon, who is involved in the case on behalf of the ACLU.

Though “very happy to see that,” Landon, as he has consistently, urged Malkus to consider striking the adjusted totals in favor of the actual totals, saying the lower totals don’t reflect the real number of bodies behind bars.

For instance, at the downtown jail Tuesday, there were 766 inmates, according to the adjusted count. At 16 over the adjusted limit of 750, the Tuesday population was one of the five times since Feb. 19 that a count at one of the six jails topped a limit, Landon said.

In fact, the actual count Tuesday at the downtown jail was 957, said Betty Wheeler, an ACLU lawyer.

Malkus, however, did not change the caps, leaving that issue for another hearing. Instead, as he has consistently since he imposed the caps last year, Malkus strongly suggested that county officials aggressively scout, fund and open new jail sites.

Deputy County Counsel Nathan C. Northup told Malkus Tuesday that the East Mesa jail is “substantially complete” and expected to be all done, ready for a shakedown, at the end of April. The county would be delighted to see it open for business, he said.

But, as county supervisors have said for months, the financially strapped county does not have enough cash to staff the site, Northup said.

Part of the county’s problem, as Malkus acknowledged Tuesday, is that it owes developer Roque de la Fuente millions of dollars for the land under the jail. The county legally seized 525 acres from De la Fuente in 1987 to build the jail.

Last September, in a case unrelated to the two ACLU suits, a jury fixed the value of the land at $55.6 million. Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Miller slashed that in December to $22.9 million, triggering an appeal from De la Fuente’s lawyers.

Adding to the county’s fiscal woes is that about $200 million generated by a voter-approved initiative is in a bank account pending the outcome of yet another lawsuit. The state Supreme Court now is reviewing the legality of Proposition A, a half-cent sales tax increase voters approved in 1988 for new jails and courts.