I’m so confused.
Why didn’t we build the Northern Branch Jail bigger the first time around?
The original project—originally set to cost $80 million in 2012 but ballooned to $120 million by the time it was finished in 2021—built a jail with 376 beds and space for 32 medical and mental health beds. Now, just four years later, we apparently need to add another few hundred beds to our inmate capacity.
It will cost Santa Barbara County an estimated $165 million (interest not included) to build the space to provide those beds. It feels like déjà vu. The only difference between this time and last time is that in addition to Sheriff Bill Brown saying that the county needs this or else, there’s a legal obligation to build the beds thanks to a 2023 lawsuit settlement over jail conditions down south. The Main Jail in Santa Barbara has got problems, you know?
It feels like the county just hemorrhages money in the name of public safety. In addition to shelling out the dough to start building more beds, the county Board of Supervisors is also opting to go green with it. What’s another $14 million when you’re already building $165 million worth of stuff?
“If we’re going to spend all this money, at least we should get a twofer from it,” 3rd District Supervisor Joan Hartmann said.
The really crazy part is that the county hasn’t fully realized its energy capacity at the Northern Branch Jail yet. It’s only using 40 percent of what was built to energize the facility. But we’re going to chuck that out the window along with the millions it cost us to build that capacity.
It really is the epitome of government waste. I want solar panels on this bird cage, but the bird-powered tricycle I use to turn the lights on still works. So I’m stuck. Do I need to call Elon Musk and DOGE? Just kidding. I would never!
Hopefully, the fear of legal reprisal will keep this construction project on track and the cost from ballooning, but I guess our new tariffs will really be the judge of that. The settlement stipulates that the expansion needs to be completed and operational by July 1, 2029.
Construction, apparently, needs to begin as soon as possible! Nothing like a tight deadline for making a financial decision that will impact the county for the next 30 years!
Of course, people are not happy. But it’s not the money that’s at issue. It’s really the way our whole justice system works. Mental health issues take second stage to the crimes themselves, which lots of public commenters had a problem with.
“We’re talking about people that have broken brains, and they’re neglecting those people,” said Mike Glick, who has a family member stuck in the jail system cycle thanks to mental health and drug abuse issues.
Rather than building more jail capacity, Glick believes the county needs to steer people and money into some sort of locked and secure mental health facility. A place that will give them the care they need to stop cycling through.
The Canary is sick of the endless cycle too. Send solar panels to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 10-20, 2025.