Golding Pushes for Use of Court Funds for Jail : Budget: Supervisor would use money earmarked for courtroom furniture to make more than 200 new beds available at the half-empty East Mesa jail.

More than $420,000 earmarked for courtroom furniture would be redirected to make 216 critically needed jail beds available under a proposal offered Tuesday by County Supervisor Susan Golding.

Golding’s plan, dismissed as an inadequate election year ploy by her rivals in the San Diego mayor’s race, would leave insufficient money for jury seating, counsel tables and bookcases in eight new “temporary” courtrooms scheduled to open downtown May 15.

But Golding said the county’s constantly overcrowded jails must be the first priority of county government, despite an ongoing budget deficit of approximately $30 million.

“I believe we can and must fast-track the opening of 216 additional jail beds at (the) East Mesa (jail),” Golding wrote in a memo to her colleagues, who will consider the proposal Tuesday. “There can be no greater priority for the Board of Supervisors, the sheriff and the entire criminal justice system.”

The plan is just the latest of the county’s efforts to provide badly needed services in the midst of severe financial problems. Last week, county attorneys persuaded a judge to allow the removal of nearly 2,000 able-bodied people from the welfare rolls to free approximately $2.45 million for other programs.

The county lost its major potential source of funding for courts and jails when a Superior Court judge ruled in December that a half-cent sales tax, which would have generated $1.6 billion over 10 years, was imposed unconstitutionally in 1988. The fate of $340 million collected before the tax was struck down is still undecided.

Opened in October, the East Mesa jails have room for more than 2,000 inmates--1,500 in a maximum security facility and 512 in a medium security wing. But because the county lacks the money to staff or operate the jails, only 296 people have been moved into the medium security jail, leaving 216 vacancies. The maximum security facility is vacant.

Two weeks ago, a Superior Court judge urged the county to open the jail cells to relieve overcrowding in the El Cajon and South Bay jails. Judge James Malkus threatened to order costly overtime pay for sheriff’s deputies in order to staff the vacant Otay Mesa jails.

Under Golding’s proposal, money from a 50 cent local addition to fines levied by the Municipal Court would be rerouted to pay for jail staffing. Authorized by the Legislature last year, the fine has been collected since August.

Golding estimated that $428,000 would be collected by June 30, the end of the current fiscal year. That is about the amount needed to fund the jails for the final quarter of the year. Funding for the additional jail beds must be added to next year’s budget, or could continue to come from the fund, she said.

Golding said that her staff “found the money” during recent research on outstanding jail warrants and she moved quickly to secure it for the jails.

The new jail beds could be made available by April 15 if the county is able to overcome a shortage of nurses and hire them to staff the jail, said Chuck Pennell, a county detention facility planner.

Arthur Jones, presiding judge of the Superior Court, said his budget contains about $60,000 of the $427,000 needed to furnish the eight civil courtrooms and two jury lounges slated to open in the Home Savings Tower on Broadway about three months from now.

Jones and Ken Martone, executive officer of the Superior Court, said that Assistant Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen assured them in a meeting Tuesday morning that the courtroom needs would be addressed and the courts would open on time.

But Janssen was not so sure.

“I don’t know if they’re going to open or not,” Janssen said in an interview. “The board has a real commitment to those courts.” But he added that “I can’t honestly tell where the money would come from.”

Golding suggested that surplus county furniture now in storage could be used for seating and tables in the courtrooms.

Meanwhile, Golding’s opponents in the race to become the next mayor of San Diego accused her of taking action on the major problems of county government only because the June primary is approaching, and suggested the measures are insufficient.

In recent months, Golding has authored plans to address a crisis at the county’s Child Protective Services program, reduce the backlog of 700,000 outstanding arrest warrants, and remove able-bodied recipients from the county’s General Relief welfare program.

“This kind of obvious political maneuvering during a mayor’s race will not disguise the fact that the Board of Supervisors has failed miserably to address our court and jail problem,” said Peter Navarro, chairman of Prevent Los Angelization Now!, a declared candidate for the post now held by Maureen O’Connor.

“This is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. What she should have done was keep the Titanic from sinking,” he added.

A campaign spokesman for San Diego City Councilman Ron Roberts, another candidate, said the move was “better late than never.”

Defending her record on jails, Golding said such claims were “baloney.” She said that the county has built more than 3,000 new jail beds during her eight years on the board, including the 2,000 on Otay Mesa.