How do we live well in reality while also dreaming about and moving toward a better future?
Well, some in authority don’t really do a great job of either, until they get caught or something gets broken. In the case of the Santa Barbara County Main Jail, both happened. The county got called out for its breaking-down facilities.
In 2017, a lawsuit, Murray v. County of Santa Barbara, claimed that the jail’s conditions were “dangerous and unconstitutional.” In the settlement, the county agreed to address those issues by improving medical and mental health care, among other improvements.
Yes, in an ideal world we wouldn’t need jails; we wouldn’t need law enforcement. If we’re going all the way into ideal utopia territory here, we wouldn’t need laws, right? But we do because humanity and its systems have been broken for a long, long time.
But I digress.
The county is working on fixing its broken reality with $24.2 million from the Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services grant fund (which sounds like a pretty idealized name, or maybe it’s just me who hears that name and thinks the money is for community programs that keep people out of jails in the first place, not for rebuilding the community where we send people who break laws). Another digression.
This rehabilitation project for the main jail is “the least expensive alternative to address immediate deferred capital, the amount of time required is considerably shorter than other options, and it provides adequate time to develop a needs assessment for future requirements in a post-pandemic world and evaluates the need for additional program requirements,” said Assistant County Executive Officer Jeff Frapwell.
Specifically, the money will get the building more in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act; update the roof, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and plumbing; and improve cells, among other things.
First District Supervisor Das Williams heard that and raised a red flag.
“I submit to you that the main jail is a money pit, and facilities usually don’t get better as they age; it usually gets worse. It’s not just $24 million, it’s $24 million plus increases as the facility continues to age,” Williams said, going on to say that staffing costs, maintenance, others will cost an “unknown amount of millions more.”
Fair point.
To which Fourth District Supervisor Bob Nelson replied that jails aren’t solutions, they’re simply tools to overcome crime, which is a reality that’s alive and kicking locally.
“I’d much rather be spending these dollars on roads, building parks and trails, but this is one of those necessary things we have to do,” he said.
Here, here. But like fixing the leaky windows in your condo or getting your car’s oil changed—you’d sure rather spend that money on a fancy outing in Santa Barbara or subscription to another streaming service—you’ve got to keep your home and car in working order.
The county can’t do nothing. It’s got to move out of this broken reality. The lawsuit should be a fire lit under its butt to fix this problem. Then the county can find more federal dollars to maintain the jail (until we don’t need them anymore) and then move forward.
The canary’s cage needs to be rehabilitated. Send comments to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 18-25, 2021.
