Proposal Calls for Merging of Newport Beach, Costa Mesa City Jails

— From KOCI News/101.5 FM

Newport Beach has submitted a proposal to Costa Mesa to book Costa Mesa's inmates into Newport Beach's jail.

Newport Beach Police Chief Jay Johnson said, "We'd increase our staff with private contract custody officers. There would be a savings in staff cost because of economy of scales that would benefit both cities."

Operation of Costa Mesa's jail is out for bid because the Costa Mesa City Council voted 4-1 (Council Person Wendy Leece in dissent) to review and analyze the outsourcing of 18 city services, including Jail Operations. The Request For Proposal was released on May 9.

Costa Mesa officials cannot comment on any bids before the June 24 completion of proposal evaluation, but Bill Lobdell, Interim Director of Communications, said "Costa Mesa is open to exploring any cooperative agreements with other local governments that will save taxpayers' money while keeping services at acceptable levels."

Chief Johnson explained his city would use this as an opportunity "for looking at a measured approach to contracting out city services."

Newport Beach's proposed approach "gets us a chance to try out private contracts without jumping in with both feet," Chief Johnson continued.

"We will have out current custody officers working and they can train the contract officers in our methods. After observing how it works we can maybe attrit out our custody officers or slowly ease out of contracted custody officers."

Newport Beach's plans became public when Newport Beach Council Person Leslie Daigle mentioned it during a budget discussion at the end of Tuesday night's City Council meeting.

Newport Beach City Manager Dave Kiff told the City Council that Costa Mesa had extended the deadline on Jail Operations bids for three more weeks and that he had "authorized the Police Chief to bring inmates to our own jail with private sector help."

Newport Beach Mayor Mike Henn said, "I commend City Manager Dave Kiff and Police Chief jay Johnson for exploring innovative solutions like this for our city, to cut expenses while preserving the very high level of public safety and other services our citizens expect."

Lobdell said, "Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and Huntington Beach are in the initial stages of exploring if there are functions/services within the three cities that make sense to be shared."

Costa Mesa's jail is a 32-bed Type I Jail Facility and has been in operation since the original construction of the city police facility in1967. According to California law, a Type I Jail Facility is "A local detention facility where persons are held for not more than 96 hours (excluding holidays) after booking." California law also allows a Type I Jail to inmate-workers sentenced to a city jail or placed in a city jail voluntarily.

The Costa Mesa City Jail currently averages more than 400 bookings a month and has six holding cells, with one sobering cell, two safety cells, and accommodations for two inmate-workers. Traditionally the Costa Mesa jail has only housed male inmates.

Since 2006 the Costa Mesa City Jail has had a controversial working relationship with the federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to report foreign born inmates. ICE can place a detainer and investigate illegal immigrants. The City Jail had 327 ICE detainers in 2008, 356 ICE detainers in 2009, and 171 ICE detainers in 2010.

In addition to providing jail operations, Newport Beach is also offering to collaborate on records personnel. Chief Johnson explained that there are written records that must be generated for every arrest and booking and Newport Beach's proposal "will allow Costa Mesa to eliminate some records responsibilities they currently have."

Chief Johnson admitted, "There's some downside for them because they'd be letting their jail go."

According to the city RFP, the Costa Mesa "City Jail books and houses a number of drunk in public arrestees, which on average are about 40-per month," with 6,070 bookings in 2008, 5,673 bookings in 2009, and 5,060 bookings in 2010. 1,681 of the 2010 bookings were for felonies, 3,323 for misdemeanors, 18 for infractions, and 38 of type unknown.

The RFP continued to report "In addition to the City Jail booking and housing drunk in public arrests, there are a significant number of bookings for other drug and/or alcohol related charges," with 525 Drunk in Public bookings in 2008, 494 in 2009, and 408 in 2010. It reported 912 Drug and/or Alcohol bookings in 2008 (excluding Drunk in Public), 932 in 2009, and 965 in 2010,

"A significant number of Costa Mesa arrestees dealt with through the pre-bookings process are determined to have medical concerns that necessitate a medical clearance, prior to housing, in order to mitigate liability exposure," according to the city RFP. While the city said it had no mechanism for listing the number of cases, it did report 117 days in 2009 and 123 days in 2010 during which there was at least one medical clearance.

— KOCI/101.5 FM