County May Seek Bond to Fix Jails

Los Angeles County officials are considering placing a bond measure on the November ballot that would pay for up to $500 million in improvements to the troubled jail system.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who is spearheading the effort, said a bond issue may be the only way the county can afford the kind of meaningful fixes to aging jails that would reduce racial violence as well as the crowding that prompts Sheriff Lee Baca to release inmates before their sentences are served.

“If this is a long-term fix, we ought to think about a long-term solution,” Yaroslavsky said. “There is not that kind of money in the county’s general fund.”

Baca said Sunday that he would need at least $300 million to reopen the shuttered Sybil Brand jail in Monterey Park to house female inmates and move high-risk inmates to the state-of-the-art Twin Towers Jail in downtown Los Angeles.

The Sheriff’s Department also wants to refurbish the aging Men’s Central Jail downtown, though Baca acknowledged the $800-million price tag is prohibitive right now.

The last time the county floated such a jail bond was 1987, for $90 million to improve the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic, site of recent melees, as well as the Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall. Voters approved that bond by the two-thirds majority required by state law.

The 20-year bond, which will expire next year, imposed a levy on local property tax bills that will also expire next year.

“Before this one is on the books, the other one will fall off,” Yaroslavsky said.

The bond proposal has generated interest from Supervisor Gloria Molina but is opposed by Supervisor Mike Antonovich.

Perhaps the board’s fiercest supporter of increased funding for the Sheriff’s Department, Antonovich said the county has the money to fix the jails.

“We don’t need new taxes -- we need a reallocation of existing resources,” Antonovich said.

A spokeswoman for Molina said she is interested in the bond idea as long as the sheriff shows that he is exhausting all other options.

Violence in the nation’s largest jail system this winter has left two inmates dead and more than 150 injured. Much of the violence occurred in dorm-style jail units where as many as 100 inmates live together.

The county houses many violent inmates in dorms because it doesn’t have enough high-security cells.

A majority of the roughly 21,000 prisoners incarcerated on any given day are housed in dorms, not cells.

To fix the problems, Baca has proposed a one-time expenditure of up to $200 million to refurbish and reopen Sybil Brand, the county’s longtime women’s jail that was closed in 1998. It would again be the county’s women’s jail, allowing the sheriff to use the higher-security Twin Towers jail downtown and another facility in Lynwood for high-risk male offenders.

Baca is seeking more than $100 million in additional annual operating expenses that would be used to staff Sybil Brand and beef up security for high-risk offenders at other jails.

Baca last year pushed for an increase in the county sales tax to benefit local police agencies as well as the Sheriff’s Department, but the measure failed to win a two-thirds majority. He has also been lobbying for the Los Angeles County jails to receive a share of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed $222-million infrastructure bond.

It remains unclear how voters would react to a bond measure. While the police tax measure did not get enough votes, other bond measures have won approval. Among them are several Los Angeles Unified School District construction bonds and a measure to improve libraries and parks.

The state Legislature is debating the governor’s infrastructure bond plan, which would pay for freeway and other big-ticket improvements. Both bond measures could land on the November ballot.