Irvine Plan to Annex Musick Jail Opposed

In Irvine’s thick environmental report detailing plans for a Great Park on the former El Toro Marine base, city officials have proposed annexing a controversial county jail near Lake Forest.

The plan drew swift opposition from Sheriff Michael S. Carona and Tom Wilson, chairman of the Board of Supervisors.

They said Irvine officials never mentioned the proposal to expand the city limits to include the jail during long negotiations with the county over transferring control of the 4,700-acre Marine base to the city.

Irvine’s ideas became public Tuesday, when the city released an environmental impact report on its plan to annex the closed base from county control.

The location of the jail has long been a sore spot with Irvine, which has unsuccessfully sued the county to block an expansion of the James A. Musick branch jail from about 1,250 inmates to more than 7,500 inmates. The expansion was approved but has yet to begin.

“I don’t see any possible way I’d support it,” Wilson said of the jail annexation plan. “I don’t know how they can propose to do something that hasn’t even been negotiated with county.”

Carona said he was “categorically opposed” to Irvine’s plan to annex the jail. He said his staff only recently discovered it while reading Irvine’s Great Park environmental report.

Irvine City Manager Allison Hart acknowledged that city officials could have communicated better with the county. The idea of adding Musick to the El Toro plan was viewed as an “opportunity” that could be rejected by the county, she said.

“Our position has always been that it’s a policy call whether the county wanted us to annex [it] or not.... We’ll submit the [annexation] application based on what the county wants to do.”

The future of Musick has been a point of contention between the county and the jail’s neighbors, Irvine and Lake Forest. The jail is operated by the county, which has long required regional facilities to stay within county jurisdiction. The closest homes, in Lake Forest, are across the street from the jail.

Otherwise, there was little of surprise in Irvine’s environmental review. The proposal would allow about 850 acres to be developed into as many as 3,625 homes and 6.5 million square feet of commercial development.

In exchange, developers will buy the land from the Navy and deed open space, parkland and sports fields to the city. Under the city’s proposal, homeowners and business owners would pay fees to support those public areas.

The wrinkle over Musick potentially slows the city’s annexation process, Wilson said.