Alameda County’s Santa Rita Jail is set to undergo a nearly $270 million maintenance and repair transformation thanks to a decision by the county Board of Supervisors this week.
The five-year project will focus on deferred maintenance and other vital repairs for the 36-year-old detention center.
“The jail is our largest facility that houses 1,600-plus people at any given time, so it is very critically important that we maintain that facility in a way that guarantees life-safety issues are addressed,” said Kimberly Gasaway, director of the Alameda County General Services Agency, which is responsible for all county-owned buildings.
Included in the project is the replacement of the “ring road,” which circles the jail’s housing units and other facilities and provides access for emergency response vehicles.
Also, much of the jail’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning system needs to be repaired, replaced or cleaned.
The project includes new fire alarms, sprinklers, cybersecurity upgrades, new roofing and security radio systems, along with improvements to remote door controls, intercoms, building perimeters, duress system alarm monitoring, CCTV surveillance systems, a new million-gallon steel water tank, new generators and 123 new detention-grade doors.
“We are currently experiencing regular failures,” Gasaway said during Tuesday’s meeting of the Board of Supervisors. “When we are operating in a break-fix environment, that is costing the county more money and more problems at the jail and it puts staff at risk as well as the inmates.”
Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez said providing the jail with regular, predictable electrical service has been a problem that inhibits her staff from delivering medical and behavioral health services in a timely manner and from delivering hot meals to inmates.
“That’s been a big concern, power to that facility has been a constant failure and a constant patchwork that is not going to work anymore,” Sanchez said.
Not aligned with criminal justice reforms
Supervisors voted 4-1 in favor of the massive expenditure, with Nikki Fortunato Bas casting the sole dissenting vote.
The project funding proposal was originally on the board’s consent calendar until it was pulled at the request of Fortunato Bas so supervisors could have a public discussion before the vote.
Fortunato Bas made her request after several people got up to criticize the project’s size and what many said was a troubling lack of public input and disclosure.
“When we are operating in a break-fix environment, that is costing the county more money and more problems at the jail and it puts staff at risk as well as the inmates.” Kimberly Gasaway, director of the Alameda County General Services Agency
“If the jail population is less than half the jail capacity, we ought to be thinking much more broadly about downsizing the jail then doing rehabilitation that makes sense to do, especially as it’s at a time when federal and state benefits are in major doubt,” said Richard Speiglman, chair of the group Interfaith Coalition for Justice in our Jails.
A few speakers at Tuesday’s meeting criticized supervisors for considering the project in light of their prior commitment to certain criminal justice reforms, such as the “care first, jails last” policy for people with mental health and addiction problems and the “reimagining adult justice” policy, which is intended to help the county reduce its reliance on incarceration.
Tash Nguyen, executive director of the advocacy group Restore Oakland, said the project is “shocking and heartbreaking, especially when the county has a $108 million deficit to close.”
Nguyen said the money spent on jail improvements and repairs could be used to build 2,100 permanent supportive housing units.
“Please suspend this and do the right thing,” she said.
Addresses quality of life and safety of inmates
Supervisor Lena Tam said she favored the proposal since it’s not a jail expansion and that it allows the county to more safely house inmates while protecting jail staff as well.
“The people that are there need to have life-safety access, whether it’s an alarm system that works, whether it’s power and electrical systems, a toilet that flushes, climate control, all these things,” Tam said. “This is not an expansion of the jail it’s basically making sure that we address the deferred maintenance that’s occurring right now in the jail.”
Fortunato Bas and Supervisor Elisa Márquez said they had concerns about the fact that the board and public only had about three days to review the project proposal before Tuesday’s meeting.
“This is the last major budget thing that I’m going to support without it being properly vetted, whether it’s a work session or at a committee level,” Marquez said. “We have to do better at that.”
Marquez also said she was sympathetic to complaints from the public about the fact that the board was in closed session for several hours Tuesday before it got to the public hearing portion of its meeting, which apparently resulted in many members of the public leaving before the project could be discussed.
She suggested the board consider moving its closed session hearings to days when they don’t also have a regular board meeting.