East Mesa Jail Closer to Opening : Budget: Supervisors tentatively approve opening new jail and closing the Las Colinas, El Cajon and South Bay jails. The stumbling block is funding to run the new facility.

In dire need of new jail space but with no money in hand, a cautious Board of Supervisors tentatively agreed Tuesday to open a 1,600-bed jail in East Mesa next year and close three existing jails.

Sheriff Jim Roache had proposed saving the county money by closing Las Colinas, El Cajon and South Bay jails and transfering the 1,224 inmates to the East Mesa facility, which is near the U.S.-Mexico border, 7 miles east of Interstate 805.

In doing so, the county, under court order to relieve jail overcrowding, would have 376 extra beds at the new $80-million East Mesa jail and save $12 million a year in staffing and operations costs. But the county would still be short $8 million a year to staff the new jail.

Obviously skittish about any financial commitments to operate the jail, county supervisors Tuesday spent 30 minutes deciding whether to approve the jail opening “in principle” or “in concept,” which had many in the room snickering over the extended debate.

“I give up!” said an exasperated Susan Golding. “I just want to call the question.”

The county already is struggling to keep its County Medical Services program intact, which serves about 25,000 indigent and working-poor residents. In its fiscal budget that ends June 30, the county has no money for jail costs.

With that in mind, supervisors agreed to support the idea of opening East Mesa but instructed county administrators to work up a formal financing plan within 30 days.

The county hopes to raise money by getting the state Bureau of Prisons, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services or other prison officials to lease space in the three jails that would be vacated.

Because the El Cajon jail is structurally unsound--a number of inmates have broken through its walls and escaped in recent years--and might take up to $1 million to strengthen, several supervisors suggested that it be leased for courtroom or office space.

Roache has been eager to close El Cajon and already has talked about moving its inmates to other jails, but the county has no leasing commitment from state or federal prison officials.

Of chief concern to supervisors is transferring inmates from several locations and housing them all at East Mesa, which might be perceived as a “dumping ground” for prisoners.

“This is bound to be a controversial issue: forcing this migration of prisoners into the south part of the county,” Supervisor Brian Bilbray said. “The people down there don’t have the economic and social clout we’d all like to have.”

At the same time, board members stressed the need to get East Mesa operating as soon as possible to make full use of its jail beds.

“I don’t think there’s a higher priority in this county than to get that facility open,” Golding said. “And we need to get it open with dispatch.”

Golding said the county should have a plan of action ready for a state Supreme Court ruling that will determine whether the county can use some $330 million in sales tax funds collected under the Proposition A referendum of 1988.

Opponents of the tax took it to court and argued that it needed to be approved by a two-thirds majority, in keeping with the tax-cutting provisions of Proposition 13, rather than by a simple majority.

To make matters worse, the county is embroiled in a legal dispute with developer Roque de la Fuente, owner of the jail property. The county seized De la Fuente’s 525 acres and a jury awarded him $55.6 million, but a Superior Court judge reduced the verdict by more than half. De la Fuente has appealed the judge’s decision.

Tuesday’s board meeting, which was to have included a cursory discussion of the jail issue and a subsequent approval of Roache’s plan, illustrated just how tentative supervisors have become over fiscal matters.

Supervisor Leon Williams, for example, did not want anything approved that would tie the board to any financial commitments, including the expenditure of any seized drug funds that Roache had recommended be spent for computers and other jail equipment.

Undersheriff Jay LaSuer said he understood the board’s hesitation.

“The board is in a bind financially, but we can work this all out,” he said after the meeting. “We’ll come back to the board with a plan that I think everyone will accept.”

In outlining Roache’s reasons for making the switch to East Mesa, LaSuer said the new jail is more structurally sound and more modern than any of the others, opens opportunities to lease other jail space, and makes better use of the jail staff.

“Modernization of our jails is essential to effective law enforcement countywide, and East Mesa is the key to that modernization,” LaSuer said.

San Diego County has the worst overcrowding problem of any county in the country with a jail population of more than 1,000 inmates, county officials say.

The county is under a court order by Superior Court Judge James Malkus to bring the downtown jail inmate population to 750 and the entire six-jail cap below 3,829. Malkus has been monitoring jail overcrowding conditions since the American Civil Liberties Union brought two lawsuits against the county.

As of April 1, the downtown Central Jail had 658 inmates in custody and 3,635 countywide. Although the jail population is now under the cap, it has exceeded capacity on a number of occasions.

The county does not arrest those who commit misdemeanor offenses because there is no space in local jails. Last year, the county had 600,000 outstanding misdemeanor warrants, most of which were for failure to appear in court.

The San Diego police department is planning to contract with a private operator to open a phase of the East Mesa jail to temporarily house up to 200 misdemeanor arrestees. The city is waiting for the De la Fuente lawsuit to be settled.