Task Force Recommends New Jail-Courts Complex; Where or How It Doesn’t Say

Hoping to expedite a solution to San Diego’s overcrowded criminal justice system, a task force recommended Wednesday that a new courthouse and jail complex be built downtown, but left unanswered most questions about its precise location, size, timing and financing.

In a proposal long on concept but short on specifics, a committee headed by San Diego City Councilman John Hartley urged that the county’s cramped, dilapidated, 27-year-old courthouse be razed and replaced by a new facility capable of meeting the local courts’ space needs through the year 2020.

Hartley’s committee also proposed construction of a new downtown jail designed to hold prisoners involved in court proceedings and people arrested on misdemeanor charges pending their transfer to other detention facilities.

Funding for the proposal could come from a voter-approved sales tax increase that faces a legal challenge or, if the half-cent increase is ruled illegal, from another similar ballot measure, the committee said in its eight-page report.

However, the group, which studied the court and jail-crowding issue for the past year, did not specify a preferred site, cost estimate, potential timetable or other key details relating to its proposal.

“We wanted to put together an overview and then let the experts work out the details later,” Hartley said. “This proposal is a living document that has changed and will continue to change to meet our changing needs.”

Similarly, Howard Wayne, the panel’s co-chairman, explained that the committee consciously chose not to recommend whether the existing courthouse site or a new downtown location should be used for the complex envisioned in its proposal.

“This is less a commitment to exactly where the bricks and mortar should go than it is a commitment to keep the courthouse downtown,” said Wayne, a deputy state attorney general. “That’s what we see as the major policy decision at this point.”

The importance of retaining the main courthouse downtown was illustrated by a study by the Centre City Development Corp. that concluded that about 40% of downtown office space was directly or indirectly related to the courts, noted Wayne Raffesberger, the executive director of San Diegans Inc.

“We would be looking at a disaster downtown” if political, economic or other factors resulted in the courthouse being relocated elsewhere, Raffesberger said at the downtown news conference at which Hartley’s committee unveiled its plan.

The proposal’s lack of specifics, however, prompted some San Diego County officials, who have primary responsibility for construction and operation of local jails and courts, to view the plan as doing little more than underlining a problem with which they are all too familiar, while offering no specific solution.

“John’s well-intentioned, and this does focus some more attention on a very serious problem,” Supervisor Susan Golding said. “But what we need to know is how we’re going to build more courtrooms and jails and where we’re going to get the money. This doesn’t do much to answer that.”

For several years, the Board of Supervisors has been exploring options for new downtown court and detention facilities. Past studies--which alternately proposed adding a high-rise to the existing courthouse or replacing it--estimated that the project would cost between $409 million and $636 million.

The board’s search for an answer to its tandem court and jail woes, however, has been seriously hampered by uncertainty over the legal fate of Proposition A, the 1988 voter-passed sales tax increase now before the California Supreme Court.

That measure, estimated to generate $1.6 billion for new courts and jails over the next decade, has been challenged on the grounds that it violates Proposition 13, the landmark 1978 statewide property-tax-cutting initiative. Opponents charge that the sales tax increase, which was approved by a narrow 50.6% margin, fell short of Proposition 13’s requirement of a two-thirds vote for approval of new taxes.

The state Supreme Court is expected to hear the case this fall, with a decision perhaps coming late this year. Pending that ruling, the revenue generated by Proposition A over the past two years--which now totals more than $250 million--is being held in escrow in an interest-bearing account.

In the event that Proposition A is ultimately ruled invalid, local officials need to begin preparing a “Son or Daughter of Prop. A” to submit to voters, Hartley argued.

“Waiting for the court to rule is only going to waste more time,” he said.

Others argue that, even if Proposition A funds become available, the revenue would probably be insufficient to cover the new jails’ and courts’ construction and operating costs. As a result, another ballot measure or other alternative sources of financing will probably be necessary, regardless of how the high court rules, Wayne and other members of the committee contend.

Emphasizing his task force’s preference for a new courthouse, Hartley said his group hopes to use Wednesday’s report to persuade county officials that renovation of the existing facility would be “like pouring good money down a rat hole.”