2 Cities Sue Over Musick Impact Report

In a move that threatens a project designed to curb jail overcrowding, Lake Forest and Irvine have sued the county over an environmental impact report that marked a key step toward converting the James A. Musick Branch Jail into a maximum-security facility.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Orange County Superior Court, alleges that the report inadequately assessed the project’s effect on surrounding residents, who have raised concerns about safety and the prospect of diminished property values. Planners also did not look hard enough for alternative sites, the suit contends.

The cities asked for an injunction preventing county authorities from going forward with the project until another “adequate, complete and objective” report is done, according to the suit.

The Musick expansion, approved by the Board of Supervisors last month, would convert the 1,200-bed jail in an unincorporated area between Irvine and Lake Forest into a 7,500-bed institution housing maximum-security inmates. The jail now holds minimum-security inmates.

“Before the supervisors approved the report, we tried to convince them that the project is a mistake,” said Christopher Caldwell, the attorney representing Lake Forest. “That didn’t work and we feel this is really the only option available to stop the jail expansion, which the cities feel very strongly about doing.”

Sheriff Brad Gates, who has struggled for two decades to increase jail space, said through a spokesman that he cannot comment on the lawsuit because he has not seen it. Supervisor Don Saltarelli, who represents portions of Irvine and Lake Forest, also declined to comment because he has not read the complaint.

The approval was a victory for Gates, whose department has been under court order to avoid jail overcrowding since the 1970s. Although the county has approved the project, it still must find funding sources to build and operate the jail.

Gates has said that the jail space shortage has forced the department to release thousands of inmates, some of whom have gone on to commit crimes in cities such as Irvine and Lake Forest.

But scores of residents who work and live near Musick have opposed the maximum-security jail, contending that it will depress property values and increase crime in their neighborhoods.

Musick, located next to the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, originally was under consideration for expansion in 1986, but the proposal failed partly due to public outcry. But after failing to find alternate sites, county officials again turned to Musick.

Earlier this year, an environmental impact report asserted that the expansion does not pose extensive safety risks to nearby residents.

But even as the report was made public, Lake Forest officials geared up for a fight by hiring Caldwell, an attorney who helped Anaheim authorities defeat an effort in 1987 to build a county jail in that city by challenging the project’s environmental impact report.

“We specifically brought him on board because he was successful” in the Anaheim case, Lake Forest Mayor Richard Dixon said. “We have every confidence that he’ll get the job done this time.”

Caldwell said there are several similarities between the two reports that will help Lake Forest and Irvine. First, both reports understated the overcrowded capacity at which jails “almost always operate,” Caldwell said.

Second, both reports concluded that there would be no significant impact to the surrounding neighborhoods, which Caldwell said “just isn’t the case.” Third, both reports failed to look at the proposals “in context of foreseeable projects.”

For example, the report’s authors, Culbertson, Adams & Associates, should have taken into account the proposal to convert the nearby El Toro base into a commercial airport. The supervisors are scheduled to vote on that matter next week.

“The lawsuit addresses exactly the same issues we have been raising,” Dixon said. “We just want the county to know that we are resolved to take this as high as we need to in order to stop the jail expansion from happening.”