It’s Time for Hard Labor on County Jail : * Supervisors Have to Stop Talking and Start Working on Gypsum Canyon Solution

What’s worse than not moving forward on building a new jail in Orange County? Try moving backward. That seems to be just what the Orange County Board of Supervisors was contemplating last week.

Indicating they were alarmed by a new staff report assessing the cost of a new jail, two board members said they were having second thoughts about building the jail on the site selected four years ago by a majority of the board. Should either Harriett M. Wieder or Thomas F. Riley--who helped form a 3-2 majority for selection of the Gypsum Canyon site--withdraw their support, the county would go back to square one.

County staff had been asked to scale down a $1-billion proposal for a 6,720-bed jail in Gypsum Canyon in hopes that a cheaper way could be found. But, although several major changes were considered, the report said that the first of two phases of a new jail still would cost the county $119 million a year to operate--not counting construction costs.

It has long been known, however, that a new jail--wherever and whenever built--would be astronomically costly. Wieder and Riley remind one of the mock indignation of “Casablanca’s” Vichy French captain, Louis Renault (played by Claude Rains), who, long having turned a blind eye to gambling in Rick’s bar, announced he was “shocked, shocked , to find there is gambling going on in here.”

Wieder, Riley and Supervisor Roger R. Stanton chose Gypsum Canyon near the Anaheim Hills after a years-long search. However, a fourth vote was needed to move forward with purchase of the site. Neither Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez nor Supervisor Don R. Roth has been willing to provide it. Meanwhile, voters last May turned down a proposal to increase the sales taxes by half a cent to pay for a new jail.

But the county, already under a federal court order to reduce jail overcrowding, has a jail crisis that grows only worse. Prior to last week, at least, the board had remained steadfast in its site selection, and had favored legislation--now pending a signature by Gov. Pete Wilson--to authorize purchase of Gypsum Canyon by a 3-2 majority vote. Now the board’s resolve appears to be waning.

Wieder and Riley held their tongues when needed to help move Gypsum Canyon forward. Their latest remarks don’t help. There has been altogether too much talk of which alternatives are unacceptable to individual board members. Instead of backing out at every turn, the board needs to make tough decisions and agree on a course of action.