2 County Agencies Face Stiff Budget Cuts : Sheriff: The East County Jail is likely to be closed as part of an effort to save the department $3.5 million to $5 million.

The East County Jail, where prisoners from Simi Valley, Moorpark and Thousand Oaks are booked and temporarily held, is a likely candidate for closure as part of the $3.5 million to $5 million in budget cuts the Sheriff’s Department will offer up to the county, officials said Friday.

Sheriff Larry Carpenter is about two weeks away from finalizing the list of cuts requested by the Ventura County Board of Supervisors to reduce his department’s budget by 7.5% to 10%, Assistant Sheriff Richard Bryce said.

Even if the supervisors impose only a 7.5% cut, Bryce said, it is likely that the East County Jail will be closed and all booking of arrestees will be done through the main jail in Ventura.

“But that’s not my decision. That’s the sheriff’s decision,” Bryce said.

Closing the jail and booking facility would save the county $442,000 a year, he said.

The Simi Valley Police Department and the California Highway Patrol, which both book prisoners into the jail facility, have sent letters to the Sheriff’s Department expressing concern over the possible closure, Bryce said.

About 5,800 prisoners were booked into the East County Jail in 1992, Bryce said. Inmates are released from the facility on bail or on their own recognizance, he said, or are transferred by van to the main jail the morning after their arrest.

All women and arrestees requiring medical attention are taken directly to Ventura.

“It would certainly have an impact upon our officers and the amount of time it took to book arrestees,” Simi Valley Police Capt. Richard Wright said of the possible jail closure. “When we take arrestees to Ventura, it runs about a three-hour turnaround, which removes the officer from mobile deployment. So it obviously would impact us in a negative way.”

While Simi Valley police did not change their booking policy in response to the county’s move to charge for booking prisoners in 1991, Wright said the need to take all prisoners to Ventura could lead to a shift in priorities.

The closure would not change the CHP booking philosophy, said Lt. Terry Enright of the CHP’s Ventura office, but would detract from the department’s street presence.

“We’ve got a large county, and when someone is arrested and booked, it’s time-consuming,” Enright said. “It takes the officer off the road. We want the officers out there.”

County Supervisor Vicky Howard, who represents Simi Valley and Moorpark, met with Carpenter for an hour Friday to discuss the possible closure of the jail facility and other cuts facing the department.

Howard said late Friday that she and Carpenter agreed to look for ways to cut the department’s budget without closing the jail facility, which she sees as an important asset to east county law enforcement.

“I think when we get to the end of the budget process, we will end up saving that facility,” Howard said. “Obviously, I can’t promise that. But that is what I’m going to be working on.”

Supervisor Maria E. VanderKolk, who represents Thousand Oaks, said she also wants to keep the jail open, but that in a battle between deputies on patrol and the convenience of the jail, the jail loses.

“On the list of priorities, I would certainly rather keep the deputies on the street,” VanderKolk said. “But I just don’t want to see the budget cut so dramatically that we’re going to have to make those kinds of decisions.”