Federal Sidestep to Allow County to Open New Jail : Criminal justice: In search for operating funds, supervisors will shift inmates from other jails to East Mesa. The shift will allow the federal government to rent more space for its prisoners.

County supervisors gave the go-ahead Tuesday to the opening of the new East Mesa jail later this year after sidestepping a federal regulation preventing the housing of more than a few federal prisoners at the $75-million prison.

The county is counting on paying operating costs of the jail by taking in state and federal prisoners, but federal regulations limit the amount the government can spend to lease space in the new jail, on Otay Mesa.

So county supervisors Tuesday deftly avoided the federal restriction by approving a plan that would transfer county prisoners into the new jail and place federal prisoners in existing county jails that are not affected by the rule.

Supervisor Susan Golding argued that the county must move ahead and make a commitment to open the new jail, which will house 1,070 inmates, even though federal prisoners may not be housed there in large numbers.

The county board voted, 4 to 1, to approve the hiring of 48 staff members for the East Mesa jail and to commit $2 million to opening it.

Supervisor Leon Williams voted against the measure because of the lack of county funds to operate the jail, and Board Chairman John MacDonald said after the vote that he had meant to vote against the jail opening.

The county plans to close the escape-prone El Cajon jail and the Las Colinas men’s jail in Santee, playing “musical chairs” with the prisoners to get around the federal restrictions, which limit lease payments to the East Mesa facility to 10% of the bonded indebtedness.

Under the proposal approved by the supervisors, the East Mesa jail will open in early November. County prisoners will be transferred from the downtown jail, Descanso Honor Camp, El Cajon jail and Las Colinas to East Mesa.

Taking their beds in the vacated facilities will be 870 federal and state prisoners. The net result would be to gain about 130 jail beds for county prisoners, Sheriff Jim Roache said.

Roache said the local and federal officials had been caught up in a “chicken or egg situation,” with each government waiting for the other to make the first commitment.

Federal authorities were not willing to lease space in county jails until they could be assured that the new East Mesa lockup will open, and county officials would not commit to opening the East Mesa jail until federal lease commitments were made.

Roache said the county has a “desperate need” for more jail space because the court-ordered limit on present jail capacity is rapidly approaching.

“This is a very precarious situation,” Roache said in urging the supervisors to commit themselves to open the new jail.

Rich Robinson, director of the county’s Office of Special Projects, said the county does not have the $2 million it has committed to the new prison, but will add it to the current $30 million in over-budgeted programs that the county must whittle down to fit within its 1991-92 budget.

Golding said the action committing funds and authorizing personnel for the new jail was necessary to prevent “another embarrassing situation” like the one that occurred when the Vista jail was completed but remained closed for nearly six months because former Sheriff John Duffy had not made proper provisions to hire and train a staff.

She conceded that East Mesa’s opening does not answer several other major problems in the county jails system, including the housing of probationary inmates in minimum-security facilities and the commitment of the city of Santee to pay the county nearly $2 million in exchange for removal of the temporary men’s jail from the community.