County Trades $10 Million in Incentives for Jail Expansion

In a move to end costly and protracted litigation, the Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved an agreement with the city of Orange to expand the Theo Lacy Branch Jail.

The Orange City Council on Tuesday also approved the agreement, which provides the city with a $10-million incentives package in exchange for allowing the county to expand the jail by 1,660 beds.

The package includes waiving jail-booking fees, which total about $250,000 a year, and millions to help encourage retail development at The City Shopping Center. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department also will help increase security in the jail area and ensure that the jail’s most dangerous inmates are not released directly onto Orange city streets.

Orange also reaps an additional benefit that was unforeseen when the city and county entered negotiations last year: The bankrupt county cannot afford to undertake the costly expansion, and it remains unclear when it will be able to do so.

“It’s uncertain at best. There are simply no funds” for the expansion, said Supervisor William G. Steiner, who negotiated the deal along with Orange Mayor Joanne Coontz and Sheriff Brad Gates.

For now, the county must limit itself to adding nearly 200 beds to the facility by “double-bunking” certain cells, Steiner said.

But that relatively small amount will still help the county, which suffers from a chronic shortage of jail space, Steiner said. The situation forces Gates to provide thousands of criminal suspects and convicts with early releases each year to make way for the newly accused.

The settlement still must be approved by a federal bankruptcy judge.

The agreement ends a flurry of litigation that has already cost taxpayers an estimated $1 million, said Steiner, who also lives in Orange.

The county’s original proposal called for increasing the 1,326-bed facility to accommodate 4,480 inmates, an expansion that infuriated residents.

Orange officials also were upset over the county’s plan to place an unlimited number of maximum-security inmates at the facility, which prompted the city to file suit over the issue in early 1994.

Now, the settlement agreement calls for the jail to scale back its expansion to accommodate 2,986 prisoners, including 1,152 maximum-security inmates.

In exchange for dropping its legal action, the city of Orange will receive waived booking fees; $3 million for traffic mitigation; approval to provide added road access to The City Shopping Center; moving an animal shelter to make way for the new road at no cost to the city; increased security and the promise that maximum-security prisoners who have served their time will only be released from the Santa Ana Jail.

Times correspondent Lesley Wright contributed to this story