Supervisors OK James A. Musick Jail Relocation Study : Survey: Board Chairman Thomas F. Riley withdraws opposition, joins others in backing plan to look into moving the Irvine facility to the El Toro Marine base.

The County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously authorized a study on the possibility of relocating the James A. Musick Branch Jail from Irvine to El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

“It would offer the least expensive land cost,” Supervisor Roger R. Stanton said in urging fellow supervisors to authorize the study. “It would not require any condemnation of public property.”

The study is to be completed within 45 days.

The action was taken after Board Chairman Thomas F. Riley on Monday backed off earlier statements strongly opposing the relocation and suggesting that any new jail facilities ought to be built in Santa Ana.

Describing those remarks as “off the cuff,” Riley on Monday added his signature to Stanton’s request for the El Toro study, which Riley said he had decided to support despite his personal objections to the proposed move.

Those objections seemed to have been temporarily put aside Tuesday as Stanton said he was “delighted to join Chairman Riley” in urging the study.

“It’s a question that has to be answered,” Stanton said of the proposed relocation.

In addition to authorizing the study, the board directed county staff to prepare an application to the federal government for acquisition of about 300 acres of the 4,700-acre Marine base for the possible relocation and to assess the value of the 100-acre Musick jail site for possible sale.

Stanton’s proposal calls for shutting down and selling the Musick jail--a minium-security facility equipped to house 1,256 inmates--and using the proceeds to construct a jail on part of the base.

Because the federal government encourages local governments to use part of closed bases for jail facilities, the county might be able to get the El Toro property for free, county officials have said.

The relocation of the Musick jail, Stanton has said, would put the facility in a remote corner of the county, where it would not bother residential neighborhoods.

Orange County has for many years been plagued by overcrowded jails, with no money available to build new facilities or expand old ones.

The debate over what to do has been renewed because of the demands of the state’s new “three strikes and you’re out” legislation, the future closure of the El Toro base and a recent Orange County Grand Jury report calling for 3,000 additional jail beds at the Musick and Santa Ana jail facilities.