Committee Will Pursue Funding for Juvenile Hall

Agreeing that Ventura County’s juvenile facilities are old and overcrowded, the Board of Supervisors appointed a steering committee Tuesday to help apply for funding for a massive new juvenile justice complex.

The steering committee must select a site and identify partial funding for the project by March 17. Members of the committee include Supervisors Kathy Long and Judy Mikels, Superior Judge Steven Z. Perren, County Probation Chief Cal Remington, County Administrative Officer Lin Koester, Director of the Resource Management Agency Tom Berg and Director of Public Works Art Goulet.

March 17 is the deadline for counties to apply for a chunk of $177 million in state and federal funds.

The new complex, as envisioned in a 24-page consultant’s report, which was officially endorsed by the supervisors Tuesday, would bring all branches of the geographically scattered juvenile justice system together on a 30-acre site, centrally located in the county.

It would include courtrooms, detention facilities and offices for all agencies related to juvenile courts--including the probation agency, the district attorney and the public defender.

Based on projections for future juvenile populations through 2010, the report recommends a complex that would more than double the current 174 detention beds to 410, and triple the current number of juvenile courtrooms from two to six.

Although the cost of the facility is not included in the report, Karen Staples, chief deputy probation officer, estimates it will cost $25 million to 30 million to build a new detention center, and $50 million to $60 million to construct the entire complex.

Before filing a grant application with the state Board of Corrections, the county will have to select a 30-acre site, pledge to provide 25%--about $5 million--of the complex’s estimated cost and promise to staff it. In addition, the state will want Ventura County to complete the facility in three years, by 2002.

Without exception, the supervisors agreed the need for new juvenile facilities is dire.

“We’ve known for a long time, even without the consultant, that we had a definite problem,” said Mikels. “Our facilities are old, overcrowded and built for a different population in a different time.”

Nevertheless, the supervisors said coming up with money and a site to build the sprawling complex will be difficult.

“It’s not insurmountable, but it’s challenging,” said Long. “What’s challenging is going to be finding 30 acres--30 affordable acres.”

But Long, who also sits on the subcommittee of the state Board of Corrections, said if the county can come up with its share of the money and a site, Ventura’s chances of securing funding are good.

Long and Supervisor Frank Schillo stressed that they wanted to see the whole complex built, but said the costs would probably require the facility to be constructed in phases--first the detention complex, then the courtrooms and office space.

Mikels was more adamant in her support for a comprehensive complex.

“Quite frankly, I will not support building just a detention center,” she said. “If we are going to do this we need to do it correctly.”

Schillo also worried that by the time the complex is built the county will already have outgrown it. The master plan is based on juvenile population projections through 2010. Schillo thought the county should use projections for 2020.

“I thought it was a little shortsighted,” he said after the meeting. “When you are contemplating construction for a need in 2010, that’s only 11 years and we don’t even have any money to build anything yet.”

Law enforcement officials across Ventura County have said repeatedly that local facilities are so jammed they cannot mete out proper punishments.

At the center of the problem is the county’s crumbling juvenile hall.

Built in 1965 to hold 84 delinquents, the facility has not been expanded since, though the county population has almost tripled. Today, as many as 140 youth are held at the facility at one time.

Judge Perren felt so strongly about the issue that he left his courtroom to address the supervisors at their meeting--only the sixth time he has done so in his 16-year tenure as a judge.

“Kids are works in progress,” he told the supervisors, adding that the community benefits when it rehabilitates young people who might otherwise go on to victimize others. “There are savings in long-term incarceration costs. And more importantly, a kid is saved.”

The steering committee will hold its first meeting in January to lay out a timeline.

“The things we have to do by March are outrageous,” said Staples of the probation agency.