S.D. Scrambles for Other Ways to Raise Money

Ill-prepared to respond to the calamitous defeat of Proposition A, San Diego County officials scrambled Thursday to come up with alternatives that would meet the legal criteria established by the state Supreme Court and still give them a chance of winning desperately needed money for courts and jails.

Options ranged from seeking a Supreme Court rehearing of the case to trimming the scope of a new ballot initiative in the hope of convincing voters to dig into their pockets despite hard times.

“We are not going to just give up,” Sheriff Jim Roache said. “We have got to respond to this problem.”

For law enforcement officials, the ruling was an unfortunate validation of months of grave warnings that the loss of Proposition A money would severely cripple San Diego County’s criminal justice system by impeding construction of new jail and courtroom space.

“What this means is that the criminal justice system in this county will continue to be almost immobilized because of the lack of jail space,” San Diego Police Chief Bob Burgreen said. “We must overcome the obstacle we’re faced with to somehow make the streets safer.”

But with the county still facing a budget deficit and the region in the grip of a recession, few predicted that a new tax proposal would win much sympathy from voters. Because jails and courts remain a top priority of most county supervisors, many predicted even more onerous budget cuts and the possibility of staff layoffs if new revenue cannot be found.

“I still think we should go back to the ballot with a request for a two-thirds vote, the regular way,” Supervisor Leon Williams said. “We have no other places to get the money. We’re cutting the budget to pieces right now.”

A committee of 15 people was formed just two weeks ago by Supervisor George Bailey, one of the main backers of the overturned proposition. County officials had avoided publicly exploring alternatives to Proposition A before the Supreme Court decision to prevent the appearance that they expected a loss in court, Bailey said.

The unnamed group, whose members Bailey declined to identify, has begun to examine the county’s options, some of which will be debated in a special session of the Board of Supervisors today.

Bailey said ideas generated so far include returning to the ballot with an initiative limited just to a jail tax or just to a court tax. Roache said he favors placing a measure on the November ballot restricted to a new tax to construct jails.

But Bailey said that, “in my opinion, we’ve got to go for the whole thing.”

The county could also ask the Supreme Court for a stay of its ruling while it attempts to win voter approval of a new proposition, Bailey said.

With a lengthy and complex court decision to decipher, there was also confusion Thursday about whether a new ballot measure would require a two-thirds vote, or whether it could be approved by a majority if the proposition created an agency that was truly independent of the county. The court ruled that Proposition A is illegal because the agency created to spend the tax revenue was “essentially controlled” by the county.

“The language would lead me to believe that it still is possible for one to create (a special agency) which could levy a general tax and therefore only require a majority vote,” said Lynn McDougal, attorney for the financing agency. “But we’ll have to look at the decision a lot closer before we can tell for sure about that and some other issues.”

Supervisor Susan Golding, however, said she has concluded that any “special tax” established since the passage of Proposition 13 requires approval by two-thirds of the voters.

Golding declared herself ready to stop spending county money on programs required--but not funded--by the state government.

“I think the board is prepared--I know I am--to just ignore state mandates in many areas,” she said.

Without Proposition A funds, the only jail project remaining on course is a 200-bed facility in East Mesa, which will be used to house suspects waiting to be arraigned on misdemeanor offenses. The $50-million, privately operated jail is being paid for by the city of San Diego and is scheduled to open April 27.

But 200 beds will hardly make a dent, officials say, in a county where about 700,000 warrants are outstanding, most of them misdemeanors, for which most offenders will never do jail time.

For more serious crimes, a 1,500-bed maximum-security jail in East Mesa is scheduled to open in March and to be operated with money collected by leasing jail space to the federal government. But Sheriff Roache said Thursday that he is still not certain whether the federal money will be enough to fully staff the jail.

A second, 1,500-bed jail that was to be built next door by 1994 is on hold. So is a 2,750-bed jail for suspects awaiting trial that was to help replace the antiquated and overcrowded downtown County Jail by 1996.

San Diego County has six jails, the population of which is above a state-imposed capacity rating by about 1,200 inmates. The jails also operate under a cap of 3,829 inmates mandated by San Diego County Superior Court Judge James Malkus. The limit is often exceeded, but at last count, the jail system was about 500 inmates under the cap.

Malkus said the Supreme Court’s decision “does not augur well for public safety needs and for the needs of our courts and jails. I think what we have to deal with is the reality of overcrowded jails for a substantial time in the future. Perhaps the county can continue to tighten its belt, but metaphorically, the county has a 12-inch waist.”

While Malkus said he sympathized with the county’s plight, government officials said they worried that the judge might further limit the overall jail population in the future. And a U.S. Department of Justice investigation is almost certain to fix on overcrowding at the central jail, which may bring a lawsuit against the county, Sheriff’s Department officials said.

“If the facts indicate that attaching courts to the jails issue lessens voter support, then we should move forward on a jails-only edition,” Roache said. “I can’t afford to waste time. The situation gets worse every day that goes by.”

Although law enforcement officials warned of ever-dangerous streets and rising crime in the wake of the Supreme Court decision, they conceded that felony offenders still do jail time and that the majority of those convicted of misdemeanors are often public drunks and trolley fare cheats.

However, Roache said local judges understand the realities of the jail space shortage and often lighten sentences accordingly.

Perhaps the greatest blow to the jail situation is the time lost while another ballot proposition is assembled, sheriff’s special assistant Dan Greenblat said.

“It’s such a long lead time to get to the ballot,” he said. “If we go in 1992, we’ve got a recession year and presidential year, and these measures are not very promising to begin with. People in our department are very, very disappointed. This department is taking it very hard.”

Rich Robinson, head of special projects for San Diego County, called the court decision “a quantum leap backward when we need to ensure public safety.”