With seemingly no other options, Santa Barbara County supervisors unanimously decided Oct. 8 to move forward with an addition to the North County Jail project.
“I don’t really think we have a choice here; we’re going to need the beds,” 4th District Supervisor Peter Adams said.
The addition would put another wing on the North County Jail, which is scheduled to be finished in 2018. The proposed structure would add an extra 228 beds to the 376 already planned for the new facility under construction at the corner of West Betteravia and Black roads, according to Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown, who gave a presentation on the proposal during the Board of Supervisors meeting on Oct. 8.
The Sheriff’s Department is applying for one of several $40 million grants made available through a bill passed to help counties in California deal with the fallout from AB 109, which requires the state’s prisons to reduce inmate populations. Brown told supervisors that preliminary plans for the North County Jail were finalized before the passage of AB 109, and therefore couldn’t take into account its effects.
The $40 million grant would only require a 10 percent match from the county, and the application is due by Oct. 31.
“This is a golden opportunity for us to expand our efficient new facility,” Brown said. “We’re going to have to do it eventually, and if we do it now, it’ll cost us 10 cents on the dollar.”
Jail populations in Santa Barbara County have increased by 11 percent since 2012, Brown said. Inmates who have come out of the state prison system now occupy about 153 of the county’s 1,133 jail beds.
Brown said that occupancy translates into not being able to incarcerate some lawbreakers, and he added that the county doesn’t have adequate programming to rehabilitate those pushed-over inmates from the state. The new wing would give the Sheriff’s Department the ability to better provide the programming needed for inmates. Those programs include education, substance abuse treatment, counseling, and rehabilitation services—all things Brown said would help an inmate’s successful re-entry into society and decrease the likelihood of them returning to jail after being released.
While none of the supervisors disagreed with the necessity of the project, it was how the county was going to fund the match that held up the conversation. At the moment, $3.9 million in funds are slated to come out of the county’s reserve budget.
“I think you will have flexibility to adjust whatever you agree to today, as long as you continue to guarantee the state a match,” County Executive Officer Chandra Wallar assured supervisors at the meeting.
With that thought in mind, supervisors instructed Brown to return before the board in January, after the state announces the grant application results, so it can further discuss how to pay for the match.
Second District Supervisor Janet Wolf also questioned the way the North County Jail project has come together: in two separate pieces with no overarching plan.
“It’s kind of a piecemeal view of whatever the overall plan is for custody operations,” Wolf told Brown at the meeting. “I’m concerned that we can’t really understand your overall future plan.”
Brown disagreed with Wolf’s assessment of the project. He said the overall goal is to upgrade facilities, increase jail capacities, balance North and South County inmate needs, and better prepare inmates for assimilation upon release.
“We have looked at this from a very strategic viewpoint,” Brown said. “And [we are] trying to achieve something we haven’t been able to achieve for years and years and years.”
This article appears in Oct 10-17, 2013.