Board Firm on Enlarged Musick Jail

The James A. Musick branch jail will be expanded into one of the largest jails in Southern California as soon as there is enough money to pay for it, a majority of Orange County supervisors said this week.

The county will proceed with a plan that could allow up to 7,968 beds for inmates at the onetime rural honor farm on the eastern edge of Irvine, board Chairman Chuck Smith said.

Last week, Irvine rebuffed the county’s offer to cap the number of inmate beds at 4,400 if the city would drop a legal challenge.

A majority of Irvine council members criticized the offer and said they would instead look for a remote site to relocate Musick, which now houses 1,256 inmates. Lake Forest, which also abuts the jail, accepted the county’s offer, but the deal dies without Irvine’s approval.

Smith, meanwhile, said there is no need for the county to find another spot for a jail. Last week, an appeals court rejected the cities’ lawsuit challenging the Musick expansion.

“We’re not going to be hunting for any remote sites,” Smith said this week. His was the swing vote earlier this month to extend the compromise offer to the cities; Supervisors Jim Silva and Cynthia P. Coad support expanding Musick. Supervisors Todd Spitzer and Tom Wilson have opposed the expansion.

Smith said the county first will finish the expansion of the Theo Lacy branch jail in Orange, where 1,310 beds will be added in the next three years. “And then we’ll start [expanding] Musick,” he said.

The expansion of Musick could cost as much as $40 million.

The county has fought for a decade over plans to expand the jail, which sits 700 feet from homes in Lake Forest and near Irvine businesses. Sheriff Mike Carona, elected in 1998 on a pledge to keep Musick small, spent 18 months working with Irvine and Lake Forest officials in an unsuccessful hunt for a more remote jail location.

Smith said it is up to Carona to tell supervisors how many new beds are needed, though the county reserves the right to build up to the maximum in the future.

“We will build whatever the sheriff says he needs,” Smith said.

But Carona said this week he will stick with the number of beds in the compromise offer. A study shows the county needs 3,144 new beds at Musick through 2050, or a total of 4,400 beds. Only minimum-and medium-security inmates should be housed there, he said.

“I don’t see my recommendation changing at all on the number of beds or the type of beds,” Carona said. He added that the county still will have to look for a remote jail site “for future generations” even if Musick ultimately nears 8,000 beds.

Irvine Councilman Chris Mears said the comments reinforce the city’s decision to reject the county’s offer. Supervisors are likely to proceed with the smaller expansion anyway, he said.

“They never would have taken [a site search] seriously,” Mears said Friday. “My hope is that they remain open to future discussions and future proposals that we intend to make.”

Smith said the only way he would consider a remote site for a new jail would be if it were in or near Irvine.

Coad agreed, saying, “It’s time for the newer cities to mature and do their share.”

The county has been under a federal court order since 1978 to reduce overcrowding. In 1985, county supervisors selected Gypsum Canyon near Anaheim as the site for a future jail. Four years and $7.3 million in studies later, the site was dropped after supervisors bowed to pressure from Anaheim residents and the land’s owner, the Irvine Co.

Expanding Musick would take it from the county’s smallest men’s jail to its largest. The Theo Lacy branch jail currently is larger, housing 1,650 inmates; final expansion will bring it to 2,960 inmates. The men’s central jail in Santa Ana has 1,315 inmates.

By comparison, the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail houses about 6,000 prisoners. Los Angeles County’s Twin Towers jail holds just under 4,200 inmates. San Diego County houses about 4,000 inmates in several jails.