Plans for Jail on Otay Mesa Back on Track

City and county negotiators have reached an agreement that will allow San Diego authorities to proceed with construction of a long-planned 200-bed city jail designed to house misdemeanor suspects, officials said.

Clearing a major hurdle that has delayed construction, San Diego County officials have now assured city authorities that the 5 1/2-acre Otay Mesa parcel on which the facility is to be built will not be relinquished as part of a pending court settlement, according to a joint statement by San Diego City Councilmen Ron Roberts and Wes Pratt.

A legal dispute had clouded the land’s future, stalling the pre-arraignment jail project for months.

The new jail, which is expected to be operational by early next year, is designed to hold misdemeanor suspects who are now routinely released after being issued summonses by police, officials say.

Proponents of the planned facility argue that suspects accused of committing certain misdemeanor offenses--including battery and possession of illicit drugs and weapons--should be subject to incarceration. San Diego County’s severely overcrowded jails, which mostly hold accused felons, have no room for most of those accused of less egregious offenses, officials say.

“This will mean that persons arrested will face a judge or spend a couple of nights in jail instead of taking a citation that they can rip up and throw in our police officers’ faces,” Roberts said.

The jail, which will cost city taxpayers some $4 million a year, is slated to be run by Wackenhut Corrections Corp., a Florida-based firm that is to be under contract to the city, officials say. The hope, authorities say, is that the facility will eventually be turned over to San Diego County and operated as part of a larger jail complex in the Otay Mesa area.