Supervisors OK Musick Jail Expansion Study

The proposed expansion of the James A. Musick Branch Jail near Irvine from a low-security detention camp into a larger facility for thousands of maximum-security inmates got a boost Tuesday when county supervisors voted to begin planning the project.

The 5-0 vote to prepare an environmental impact report came despite requests from city officials in Irvine and Lake Forest to delay any action so residents would have more time to examine the proposal, still in its earliest stages.

The jail is about 300 feet from a Lake Forest neighborhood, where some residents are strongly against expansion of the facility, which opened in 1960.

City officials said Tuesday that they thought the environmental review was being rushed, but they expressed support for the goal of the proposal: to slow the early release of more than 10,000 inmates each year because of jail overcrowding.

“We hope to take the time to step back and look at this,” Irvine Mayor Mike Ward said. “I don’t like the idea of felons being released. But I don’t like the idea of the county solving all its jail problems at the James A. Musick facility either.”

Supervisors and Sheriff Brad Gates vowed to keep the cities informed about the progress of the environmental study but said they saw no need to delay action. Officials hope to complete the report by November, when voters will likely consider a state ballot measure for jail construction bonds.

By having an expansion plan ready by November, Gates said the county will have a better chance of receiving up to $80 million from the bond measure.

But even if the board eventually approves the Musick expansion, such a windfall would cover only a fraction of the project costs. The large share of any revenue from a bond sale would go to fund a previously approved 2,900-bed expansion of the Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange.

The board hired Culbertson Adams & Associates to prepare the report. The firm, which also handled planning for the Theo Lacy expansion, will receive as much as $245,000 for the job.

Gates proposed the Musick study last month as a way of reducing the early releases. He also asked that the county examine the possibility of building a jail at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, which is scheduled for closure by the military in 1999.

The Sheriff’s Department estimates that 4,000 to 7,000 new jail beds are needed to significantly reduce the number of early releases.

The 100-acre Musick facility now houses about 1,000 “low-risk” offenders, some of whom harvest vegetables at a farm on the site and sleep in tent-like structures. It is located just outside Irvine city limits in an unincorporated area.

Supervisor Marian Bergeson requested that the environmental impact report also consider alternative sites for a new jail, including locations closer to courthouses in Santa Ana.

“We need to look at transportation costs and the impacts of having inmates incarcerated far from the court facilities,” said Bergeson, who urged planners to show “a great deal of sensitivity” to the concerns of nearby residents.

Gates said there does not need to be conflict over the Musick proposal. He pointed out that Supervisor William G. Steiner brokered a 1994 compromise between the county and the city of Orange that resulted in an agreement on the Theo Lacy expansion. The compromise reduced the size of the expansion from more than 4,000 beds to about 2,900.

“I understand the fears of residents,” Steiner said of the Musick issue. “Maybe there are mitigations that can make it more palatable.”