Santa Ana Opposes Anti-El Toro Measure

Citing concerns that local jail overcrowding might result, Santa Ana’s City Council on Tuesday passed a resolution opposing Measure F, the anti-airport initiative on the March 7 ballot.

If approved, Measure F would require approval by two-thirds of Orange County voters for construction or major expansion of any airport, large jail near homes or hazardous-waste landfill.

“The city of Santa Ana already bears the brunt of the jail system, and we have very overcrowded jails,” Council Member Lisa Bist said before the vote. “We don’t want that to continue. We need to build more jails, and other cities in the county need to start bearing the burden.”

Santa Ana houses three county jails with a total of 2,344 beds, and a city jail with 480 beds.

Bist said she is also upset by a compromise plan to expand the James A. Musick jail in Irvine. After the county Board of Supervisors in 1998 approved a 7,500-bed maximum-security expansion for that facility, the cities of Irvine and Lake Forest sued to block it. Under the compromise, Musick would add 3,300 minimum- and medium-security beds.

Santa Ana officials fear that the compromise will force law enforcement agencies to house more maximum-security offenders in the Santa Ana and Orange city jails.

Measure F has the support of South County cities opposed to a plan to build a commercial airport at the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, which closed last year.

But several cities, among them Anaheim, Orange, Seal Beach and Villa Park, have passed resolutions against the measure. In Seal Beach, for example, officials are concerned that scrubbing the El Toro proposal eventually might mean that planners would consider Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station or nearby Los Alamitos Armed Forces Reserve Center as alternative sites.