Dedicated to Efficiency : Inmates Will Find Few Creature Comforts at New Todd Road Jail

There are no hoops above the outlined basketball courts in the recreation areas. The pay phones hanging on cell walls have no dial tone.

But those are about the only finishing touches remaining at the new Todd Road Jail, which was dedicated Thursday before a crowd of more than 200 county residents and officials. Inmates will begin arriving next week.

“The efficient design of this facility allows us to house a large amount of inmates with a minimum of personnel,” Sheriff Larry Carpenter told the audience seated outside the main entrance to the $53.7-million compound.

“Some say the jail was too expensive,” Carpenter said. “But as you tour the jail, show me the creature comforts.

“Leaving the bad guys on the street is much more expensive,” he said.

The new facility will cost about $12 million a year to staff, with 159 guards. The ratio of five inmates per jailer is well above the average of 2.5, Sheriff Carpenter said.

The sprawling center, which will house 80 or more inmates by the end of next week, boasts very few comforts, unless you count the color television sets in dining areas attached to each 16-cell complex and the mauve trim on the concrete-block walls.

Inmates will be housed two to a cell. Stainless steel mirrors are embedded on the walls above metal sinks, and a thin window in each unit allows them glimpses of the Santa Clara Valley lemon orchards.

“This facility represents years of blood, sweat, tears and toil, some of which was personally mine,” Supervisor Maggie Kildee said during the dedication ceremonies.

After the 30-minute dedication, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department conducted tours of the complex, which ultimately will house nearly 800 inmates. It is designed to hold prisoners already convicted of crimes and free up the main Ventura County Jail for criminal suspects before they go to trial.

More than 2,300 inmates could be housed in the new jail if the county expands the complex in phases as outlined.

Tilt- and zoom-cameras cover virtually every inch of the compound, which now has four main housing units that can sleep up to 192 inmates each. Guards watch the activity on 13-inch color monitors.

“We can bring them (the cameras) down to where we can see the mole on someone’s face,” said Sgt. Jim Sliester, who led a group of three county supervisors around the complex Thursday morning.

The opening of the 230,000-square-foot jail, built with the help of $31 million in state funds, did not come without some resistance. Supervisor John K. Flynn fought against the new jail, instead urging expansion of the jail at the County Government Center in Ventura. Flynn did not attend the dedication ceremony. He was out of town, an aide said.

And a group calling itself Citizens to Save the Greenbelt filed two lawsuits against the county to stop construction.

The group complained in court papers that the county violated an agreement to preserve the agricultural greenbelt between Ventura and Santa Paula, and wanted the state Department of Fish and Game to withhold permission to build a flood wall around the facility.

But efforts to halt construction were unsuccessful.

“We needed to make some hard and difficult decisions,” Kildee told the audience Thursday. “But we need to consider the greater public good and not default to court-ordered release programs.”

The County Jail opened in 1980 with a bed capacity of 400, said Sgt. Mark O’Donnell. It now has about 1,000 inmates.

“The new jail will definitely relieve some of the overcrowding we have here,” said O’Donnell, a Ventura County Jail commander.