County Won’t Hurry Vote on Jail Deal

Orange County supervisors do not have to act before the March 7 election on a proposal to allow limited expansion of a county jail in Lake Forest, County Counsel Laurence M. Watson said Thursday.

Board Chairman Charles V. Smith said the leeway gives the county more time to study an offer by Lake Forest and Irvine to move forward with the controversial expansion. Supervisors had earlier said they would try to accept or reject the offer before the election.

“This takes the pressure off,” Smith said. “I’ll give my group whatever time they need.”

Watson said in a confidential memo that he gave incorrect advice during a closed session Tuesday with supervisors to discuss the jail agreement crafted between the county and the two cities. Lake Forest and Irvine had earlier sued the county over a larger expansion plan for the James A. Musick Branch Jail, approved in 1998.

Watson said he erred when he told supervisors that the deal had to be accepted by a judge by March 7 or risk being nullified by passage of Measure F. The measure would require approval by two-thirds of voters before the county could build airport projects, large jails within a half-mile of homes and hazardous-waste landfills.

In fact, Watson’s memo said, the measure exempts jail expansions approved by all parties through a court settlement.

Although the pressure may be off, Smith said city officials still have insisted that the board act before March 7 and “let us know the offer was off the table if we didn’t.”

An early settlement would protect the cities from the full Musick expansion if Measure F fails.

“A deadline like that was politically motivated,” Supervisor Cynthia Coad said Thursday, supporting letting the review committee set its own schedule.