Court Win for County Reshuffles Deck on Jails

For nearly a decade, residents in Lake Forest and Irvine have fought, sued and pleaded to block county expansion of a onetime rural honor farm into a sprawling maximum-security jail, a compound three times the size of San Quentin.

Now, it appears they have lost the upper hand in that fight.

Armed with a recent appellate court victory, Orange County officials are preparing to start enlarging the James A. Musick Branch Jail. Just how large is open to debate, but this much is clear: It’s the county’s call.

The jail, pinched between Irvine and Lake Forest and only 700 feet from homes, holds 1,256 inmates. The county would add as many as 6,712 beds, making it by far the largest jail in Orange County. Sheriff Mike Carona said in February that the jail system needs to make room for at least 4,650 new inmates by 2025.

The recent developments over Musick have left Irvine and Lake Forest suddenly at odds on what to do next.

Two weeks ago, before the appeals court had ruled, county supervisors agreed to a much smaller expansion if the cities would drop three related lawsuits challenging the jail plan. Lake Forest jumped at the offer, which would have capped the jail’s population at 4,400. Irvine didn’t. Instead, a divided Irvine City Council voted to hunt for a remote spot in the county’s foothills or canyons to move the jail. Past efforts to find such a remote location have failed.

Had Irvine accepted the compromise offer, the county would have had to honor the 4,400-bed plan. Now, all bets are off.

“The whole premise of the deal was for the cities of Lake Forest and Irvine to drop their lawsuits,” James Campbell, chief aide to Board of Supervisors Chairman Chuck Smith, said last week.

Given the county’s turn of fortunes with the appellate court ruling, there’s little reason to keep the offer of a smaller jail on the table, Campbell said.

Smith was the swing vote in the 3-2 decision to extend the offer of a smaller jail, joined by Supervisors Todd Spitzer and Tom Wilson. Supervisors Jim Silva and Cynthia P. Coad favored the full expansion. Smith, traveling in Vietnam last week, could not be reached for comment.

While the offer has not been withdrawn, most of the supervisors are intent on quickly solving the county’s jail crowding problem. The county has been under a federal court order since 1978 to reduce crowding in its jails, forcing the early release of hundreds of thousands of inmates.

Carona, who led an unsuccessful search last year for a remote jail site, said he has done all he can to honor a 1998 campaign pledge to avoid the full build-out of Musick. Though Carona would run any new jail, supervisors have the authority to decide where it should be built and how large it should be.

“There have been 18-hour days for months trying to make this [compromise] work,” Assistant Sheriff Rocky Hewitt said. “The sheriff was hopeful Irvine would accept the agreement. He’s willing to work with anybody any time [on the jail problem], but time is running out.”

The prospect of yet another site search by Irvine has angered officials in Orange. City leaders there spent last year working with Carona and Irvine officials to target remote spots for future inmates. After studying dozens of locations, the most promising candidate--in Fremont Canyon near Orange--was dropped because of city opposition, soaring cost estimates for roads and utilities, and environmental worries.

“It sounds like we’re back to where we were a year ago, trying to pawn this off on the city of Orange,” said Orange Mayor Mark Murphy, who participated in the previous search committee. “Orange is not going to accept that alternative.”

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Orange already is home to the Theo Lacy Branch Jail, which is nearly doubling its inmate population and will eventually have room for 2,960 inmates. Officials say it would be wrong for the city to be sandwiched between two maximum-security jails.

“I’m certainly disappointed that Irvine hasn’t seen the wisdom of the compromise that Lake Forest approved of,” Murphy said last week.

Meanwhile, officials at the Irvine Co. said they were unaware until last week’s Irvine council action that they were expected to help the new jail committee look for a remote site. In his motion to form the group, Irvine Councilman Chris Mears said the development firm would “provide assistance” to the group, since most of the sites thought to be suitable for jail use belong to the Irvine Co., the county’s largest landowner.

“We view ‘assistance’ to mean providing technical information,” company spokesman Mike Stockstill said after last Monday’s council meeting. “Our expectation is that this process will be similar to what the city did in 1998 and 1999.”

Officials across the county have a dismal record in finding--and keeping--a site for a remote jail. In 1987, the Board of Supervisors voted to build a 6,000-bed jail in Gypsum Canyon near Anaheim Hills, on property owned by the Irvine Co.

Four years and $7.3 million later, the board abandoned the site after intense opposition. Then-Sheriff Brad Gates turned to Musick as the county’s last hope of providing enough long-term jail beds to handle the county’s inmate population.

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Expansion Plans

The county has won more legal authority to expand the James A. Musick Branch Jail from 1,200 beds to as many as 7,968 beds. Farmland would be used for expansion.

Where the Beds Are

Orange County currently houses 5,340 inmates among its five jails. By 2025, approved expansion plans call for the county to hold up to 13,362 inmates.

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JAIL Current 2025 Increase Theo Lacy Branch Jail, Orange 1,650 2,960 1,310 Men’s Central Jail, Santa Ana 1,315 1,315 0 James A. Musick Branch Jail 1,256 7,968 6,712 Intake & Release Center, Santa Ana 784 784 0 Women’s Jail, Santa Ana 335 335 0

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Source: Orange County Sheriff’s Department