County’s OK Is Expected for New Jail on East Mesa

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors next week is expected to approve a proposal by the county’s chief administrator to build a $44-million jail and honor camp on East Mesa near the Mexican border, Supervisor George Bailey said Tuesday.

Chief Administrative Officer Norman Hickey sent a 21-page report to the board Monday recommending that the county buy or lease a 500-acre site to be used for the new 600-bed jail and a 250-bed honor ranch. Rich Robinson, director of the CAO’s office of special projects, said the jail would be run by the Sheriff’s Department, while the honor ranch would be operated by the county Probation Department.

“I don’t expect any major opposition to the new site. It’s an ideal site . . . on a mesa surrounded by canyons and miles away from residential areas. There’s no way it can hurt anybody,� Bailey said.

The proposed site is in Bailey’s district, which already includes eight other jails. County officials had previously considered three other locations for the jail: on Navy land near Miramar Naval Air Station, on a county-owned block in downtown San Diego and in downtown Santee.

At one point the county favored building the facility in Santee, adjacent to the Los Colinas women’s jail but the idea encountered stiff opposition from Santee residents and officials. The East Mesa site is about a mile from a 2,200-bed state prison being built on Otay Mesa. The prison is scheduled to be completed in November.

If the supervisors approve the proposal, the two facilities could be operational within three years, said Robinson.

He called Hickey’s report a response to a jail emergency declared in February by the board. Sheriff John Duffy had asked the supervisors to declare an emergency because of overcrowding at the county’s six jails. The jails are designed to house 2,315 inmates, but are currently holding more than 3,600.

Robinson said county officials felt they had to move quickly to build a new jail in order to head off possible legal action stemming from overcrowding at the El Cajon and Chula Vista jails. The downtown facility, largest of the six county jails, is under court order to limit the number of prisoners it can house on any given day.

Even if the new facility is built, Robinson said, total available jail space would still fall more than 600 beds short of the number needed to ease overcrowding in the county jails.

According to Bailey, the new jail would be used only until a new complex of jails and a downtown courthouse is built in the next 20 years. Eventually, the entire East Mesa complex would be turned over to the Probation Department for use as an honor camp, Bailey said.

The supervisors are asking local voters to provide financing for the new courthouse and jails, estimated to cost $419 million, by approving a measure on the November ballot to increase the local sales tax by half a cent. In addition to a new downtown courthouse and jail, county officials said that the $419 million is needed to build new jails in El Cajon and Chula Vista.

Robinson said the county would be responsible for coming up with $10 million of the $44-million estimated cost of the East Mesa facility. The rest of the money would come from a statewide bond measure approved by voters in June for the construction of new jails.

The $44-million price tag includes the land, which is estimated to be worth $6 million to $10 million, Robinson said. The site is owned by two corporations run by the mother of car dealer Roque de la Fuente, Robinson said.