Lost in the debate about Jail High or Great Park High is an effort underway by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department to seek additional state funds — a maximum of $80 million extra dollars — to expand the Musick Jail on Irvine’s Northeast Corridor.
Staff members of the Sheriff’s Department plan to meet with Irvine City Staff and members of the Irvine City Council to discuss their plans to seek additional funds under SB1022 specifically to expand Musick Jail. The total funds available under SB1022 are $500 million to pay for construction financing for jail facilities with extra consideration being granted to counties that seek to replace existing antiquated facilities with new ones that can handle prisoners for re-entry into society, mental health treatment and space to manage an “adult offender” population.
The total financing is being divided among small, mid-sized and large counties with a maximum of $80 million awarded per large county. It’s unclear how much would come to a successful Orange County bid for more funds, but what is clear is the new funds are earmarked for Musick expansion.
The plans from the OCSD will be presented to the County BoS in early October for their approval. OCSD wants to add two new housing modules in addition to previously disclosed expanded housing modules under AB900; the new newest modules are designated for programming, treatment and medical and would add 384 new beds to the jail site.
With an expanded jail site comes an expanded neighborhood consisting of immediate family and close friends of inmates. We’ll be watching to see how Supervisor Todd Spitzer responds to this threat against Irvine’s neighborhoods with a significantly expanded Musick Jail.
I would assume that Irvine City Council had done there due diligence years ago and would have concluded that a jail on the outskirts of the City could become a prison!
Would you like your children to attend school within a 2-minute walk of a building housing thousands of individuals imprisoned for serious felons?
According to last nights city council meeting, members Lalloway and Shea concluded, “We don’t really have oversight with this, let IUSD make that choice alone on where the site will be located, “NOT US”.
Sounds like political posturing BEFORE an election.
“Irvine Unified school District” new high school, destined to be plopped down next to the Prison.
Omg the sky is falling! Expansion of the musick jail omg! Whatever will us white folk do!!!!???? If it was up to me i would make that stupid great park a maximum security prison that would be awesome. Shut up you bunch of crybabies.
Katherine, there you go, “assuming” again, apparently without having a clue as to what happened previously on the Musick jail issue. Detailed negotiations had taken place when Mike Corona was Sheriff and and tentative agreement reached, keeping Musick as a Minimum Security facility and with very liimited expansion. It would have been a very good deal for Irvine.
Your BFF, Larry Agran was the one who torpedoed the proposed agreement and here we are today, looking a mega expansion. Now of course, Agran wants to move the High School because of the end result of his shortsighted vision? The School District does not agree and despite the amount of General Fund tax dollars Agran has gifted them, his influence doesn’t seem to carry much weight.
FYI, Shea has been working behind the scenes with Agran, the School District, Five Points and the Irvine Company to come up with a solution for the school issue. She is doing this because of her campaign committment to get Great Park development moving. That solution includes a great sports complex for the school, which would be built on a joint use arrangement. I cannot imagine the School District turning down such an offer?
In the end however, Lalloway and Shea are correct on the oversight. The City Council cannot mandate anything to the School District. The ball is in the court of the District and they alone have the responsibility and authority for the decision. It might help, if the same supportive crowd at the last Council session shows up at a School Board meeting to provide added incentive. I predict in the end, they will move the High School and then other pieces of the GP development will start to fall in place.
Pat Rogers is correct about the wisdom of Larry Agran’s proposal to build new Irvine high school in the Great Park rather than next to the expanding Musick Jail — the Great Park site is far superior.
Pat is wrong, however, about who is responsible for the Musick Jail expansion. The responsibility for the jail expansion belongs to the Board of Supervisors, and not to Larry Agran, who has opposed the jail’s expansion (so far, successfully) for over a dozen years.
Pat is apparently referring to the decision of the Irvine City Council in late 2000 not to agree to a “comprise” with the County regarding their desire to drastically expand Musick Jail. The Los Angeles Times pointed out that the “compromise” agreement that Irvine rejected “would allow up to 4,400 beds [at Musick Jail] over the next 15 years [up from its then-current 1,200 beds].” In other words, the so-called “compromise” would have allowed a nearly four-fold expansion of the number of Musick Jail prisoners. As the Los Angeles Times noted, “Incoming Mayor Larry Agran and new council members Chris Mears and Beth Krom had promised during their campaigns to reverse earlier council approvals to shift park funding to the state and to allow a limited expansion of the James A. Musick Branch Jail.” Fulfilling their explicit campaign promise, Mayor Agran and Council Members Krom and Mears opposed such a major expansion of Musick. In addition, since that time, Larry Agran has continued to oppose expansion of Musick Jail. In fact, Irvine’s lawsuit against the expansion is still pending.
You can read the original Los Angeles Times story, entitled “Irvine Council Debates El Toro Park, Jail: Incoming Mayor Larry Agran and new council members Chris Mears, Beth Krom campaigned for green space at Marine base, no expansion at Musick,” at http://articles.latimes.com/2000/dec/13/local/me-65027
Feel free to refute Pat Rodgers anytime.