O.C. Sheriff Frustrated as Bid to Expand Jail in Irvine Dies

A plan designed to ease overcrowding in the Orange County jail system by enlarging the branch jail in Irvine is dead, county supervisors said Tuesday.

The plan’s failure prompted its author, Sheriff Mike Carona, to voice grave concerns about the continuing political quagmire over what is considered one of the nation’s most cramped jail systems.

“I’m just frustrated that we still don’t have an answer,” he said. “I understand they don’t like the compromise . . . but then what? I’m at a critical mass out here. The frustration is with needing to get something done.”

The sheriff’s plan called for a maximum of 4,600 new low-security beds at James A. Musick Branch Jail over the next 15 years--far less than the 7,500 maximum-security beds sought by his predecessor, Brad Gates. But Carona’s proposal won the support of Lake Forest and Irvine, which promised to drop their lawsuit against the expansion plans as part of the deal.

County supervisors spent the last six months reviewing the compromise but did not officially act on it. Three supervisors said Tuesday that the compromise lacks the votes for approval and is no longer under consideration.

With the deal pushed aside, Lake Forest officials said they will aggressively push ahead with their legal fight aimed at halting any expansion at Musick. An appeals court hearing is scheduled to review the matter next week.

The county has labored for more than two decades under a federal court order to reduce its chronic jail overcrowding. Hundreds of thousands of inmates have been granted early releases over the last decade to make room for incoming offenders, and officials last year blamed the tight conditions for jail riots and attacks on deputies.

County supervisors have repeatedly failed in their efforts to find a politically acceptable site for a new jail and have long eyed Musick as the answer in helping the county break free of the federal court order.

The compromise package won the support of only two supervisors, Todd Spitzer and Tom Wilson, both of whom represent areas abutting the jail. Supervisor Charles Smith said he and two others could not support the plan because of what they saw as several key weaknesses in the settlement’s language.

The proposal contained too many conditions, Smith said, and many of those conditions were “open to interpretation,” he said, raising the specter of more legal battles down the road.