COUNTYWIDE : Gates Says Jail’s Effects Exaggerated

Responding to critics of a bill designed to break the deadlock over a proposed Gypsum Canyon jail, Sheriff Brad Gates chided opponents Thursday for exaggerating the impact the jail would have on taxpayers.

In a letter to Gov. Pete Wilson, Gates, who is supporting the bill by Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove), said the legislation is the only “viable solution to the 13-year-old jail overcrowding problem in Orange County.

Assembly Bill 1819 is now on Wilson’s desk, and both supporters and opponents are aggressively lobbying the governor and his staff.

If signed into law, the bill would allow three members of the County Board of Supervisors to condemn land for a jail. Normally, such action would require four votes. Only three of the five supervisors support the Gypsum Canyon jail proposal, and the issue of condemnation has been deadlocked for years.

Gates said opponents of the Umberg bill offer no solutions to the jail overcrowding problems facing county residents and urged the governor to sign the bill so a “decision can be made once and for all that will benefit this and future generations of families that call Orange County home.”

He said in his letter that opponents’ claims that the land for the jail will cost more than $100 million are false.

“The land has been appraised by a firm mutually acceptable to the county and the landowner. . . . The value was set at $54 million by the appraiser.”

The Irvine Co., owner of the 2,500 acres in Gypsum Canyon near Anaheim Hills, has remained silent on the measure.

Gates said criticism that a new jail in the canyon would create tremendous traffic problems on the Riverside Freeway is coming from many of the same people who prefer to see the Irvine Co. housing development there. The company’s plan includes about 8,000 homes, which would create “approximately 64,000 car trips per day” compared to about 7,071 for a jail, Gates said.

He pointed out that the new Eastern Transportation Corridor, which is planned for that area, would relieve any traffic increase caused by a new jail.