Judge Slashes Jail Land Award More Than Half : Courts: Jeffrey T. Miller of Superior Court calls jury’s award of $55.6 million “excessive.” He offers instead $22.9 million for 523 acres in East Mesa seized by county through eminent domain for a new jail.

A Superior Court judge Friday slashed by more than half the $55.6-million jury award rendered against the county for 525 acres it seized to build the East Mesa jail.

In his court order, Superior Court Judge Jeffrey T. Miller gave developer Roque de la Fuente II the option of either accepting $22.9 million for the land--near the U.S.-Mexico border and about 7 miles east of Interstate 805--or going back to court with the county.

In September, a Superior Court jury decided that the property--seized under the county’s eminent domain powers--was ideally suited for a jail and agreed to the $55.6-million figure after several experts testified to the land’s value.

Miller opened the door for Friday’s decision at a Dec. 17 hearing in which he refused to order a new trial.

At that hearing, Miller rejected a number of claims by the county that urged a new trial but did not go so far as to conclude that the jury could not have reached any other verdict, the legal test for a new trial.

The judge based the worth of the land Friday on his review of several commercial and industrial properties introduced by appraisers who testified at the trial.

He called the verdict “excessive and not supported by the evidence” before deciding that 213 acres of De la Fuente’s property--deemed “usable”--was worth $100,000 per acre and 310 acres, which has a higher degree of slope, is “unusable” and worth $5,000 per acre.

De la Fuente said Friday he was dismayed by the order and planned to have his attorneys talk to Miller.

“I see this as a tennis game where we won two sets 6-love, 6-love and were ahead 5-0 in the third,” he said. “At triple-set point, it started raining, and the judge wanted to start the match over from the beginning.

“I’m disappointed after reading the order and . . . there’s a series of discrepancies that need to be pointed out to the judge.”

The county had the opposite reaction.

“This is the first good news we’ve had on this case,” said Ronald L. Endeman, an attorney representing the county. “The judge has really analyzed the numbers. He feels the jury verdict just couldn’t work out. The evidence just doesn’t support the verdict.”

Even if De la Fuente accepts the judge’s order, the County Board of Supervisors still must approve the amount.

“This is certainly a far more acceptable figure, but you know, it’s more than three times what our appraisal was,” said Leon Williams, chairman of the Board of Supervisors. “Still, it’s very, very good news. It didn’t seem to me that any court could hold a straight face with that prior judgment. It was so unreasonable and out of this world.”

The county chose the East Mesa site and condemned the land 3 years ago. The $80-million, 784-bed jail was sorely needed because of severe crowding at the county’s six facilities.

Although the jail is scheduled to be finished in February, the money to operate it still is in question. Money collected under the Proposition A sales-tax referendum of 1988 was challenged by opponents of the tax, who said it needed to be approved by a two-thirds majority in keeping with the tax-cutting Proposition 13. Proposition A passed by a slim margin.

The state Supreme Court is now considering the case, and its ruling is expected to determine whether the county can spend about $160 million it has collected so far.

De la Fuente said the county has been unwilling to negotiate a fair price for the land since 1987. But he said he is still hopeful of settling the matter without going to a new trial.

“My lawyers are currently reviewing this,” he said. “I still believe in the system. I believe judge (Miller) has been right in the majority of his rulings on this case.”

Miller has given the developer until 2 p.m. Jan. 7 to make his decision.

Still to be determined are the amount of De la Fuente’s attorney’s fees and interest accrued on the $55.6 million since the jury verdict. Miller said the $22.9 million offer does not include either amount. De la Fuente’s attorneys--who won the case--had asked for $15.4 million in attorney’s fees alone.

Before the trial, De la Fuente had offered to settle the case for $10.24 million, but the county wanted to settle for $7.5 million.

Although the county had argued during trial that De la Fuente’s land was best suited for residential development, De la Fuente’s attorney pointed out that it was just east of the Donovan state prison and that its best use would be as jail property. The jury agreed.

In calculating the $22.9 million offer, Miller cited the comparable sales of parcels surrounding the East Mesa jail that were developed by a De la Fuente-hired appraiser. Using comparable sales, the appraiser determined that the 213 “usable” acres of the De la Fuente property were worth $65 million.

Miller called the appraiser’s comparable sales analysis “neither credible nor supportable.” He said the condemned jail property is inferior to a nearby parcel that the appraiser said was worth $140,000 an acre. Miller placed the value of the jail property midway between a set of nearby industrial sales of $58,500 per acre and commercial sales of $140,000 an acre to get the $100,000 an acre he used for the “usable” property.

The $22.9-million offer “is still an awful lot of money, to be candid,” the county’s Endeman said. “But let’s face it, it’s a lot better than it was.”