Last week, Irvine City Councilman Jeffrey Lalloway tried in vain to stir up angst about a proposal from Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens to seek a grant to fund expansion of the Musick Jail facility in Lake Forest. The jail, which neighbors Irvine’s Great Park, has been the subject of multiple lawsuits by cities over the years trying to prevent its expansion. All of those lawsuits have failed.
Lalloway spoke at the Board of Supervisors meeting claiming that violent criminals, including murderers, rapists and drug traffickers, can potentially be housed at Musick for up to a week.
“We in Irvine are proud to call Irvine America’s safest city,” Lalloway said at the meeting. “Dramatically increasing the size of the county jail is not acceptable for many residents.”
The Sheriff Department has countered that such plans are not on the table.
Voice of OC reports that:
The Orange County Board of Supervisors approved efforts to obtain $100 million in state grant funds to build a 512-bed facility at the jail. Sheriff’s officials have said they must expand the jail because of plans to realign state prisons and increase the number of inmates at county jails.
According to their story, Lalloway isn’t satisfied with the Sheriff’s assurances.
“The current sheriff — and future sheriffs — are on a trajectory to build a full-scale prison at Musick, and that is what I oppose,” Lalloway said.
While Lallowy isn’t satisfied, Sheriff Hutchens seems to have won over the leadership of both Lake Forest and Irvine. It seems that Mr. Lalloway if busy playing his NIMBY card trying to scare people into opposing something that the courts have repeatedly ruled can be done by both the Sheriff and County Board of Supervisors.
Read more of the Voice of OC story here for the complete story.