The Seal Beach Police Department chief on Monday, Feb. 27 told the City Council that the jail’s expenses would probably exceed revenues by $143,891 this fiscal year.
However, the council unanimously accepted Interim Chief Robert Luman’s recommendation that the city continue to operate the jail.
“The jail is 2.68 percent or $18,467 under budget at this point in the fiscal year,” Luman wrote in his staff report to the council. “With revenues to date of $303,465 our expenditures exceed revenues by $83,936.”
The Luman report said the Police Department’s best projections anticipate that expenses will exceed income by $143,891.
Luman told the council the jail would probably never achieve the goal of being “cost neutral,” which apparently means the city is unlikely to break even on the cost.
During the public comment segment of the council meeting, resident and activist Joyce Parque said the city should close the jail.
“Why don’t we close it down?” Parque asked
When she finished speaking, some members of the audience applauded.
Parque has referred to the jail’s pay-to-stay revenue generating program as a “bed and breakfast” for criminals that spends taxpayers’ money on food, TV and living quarters for inmates.
Parque was also apparently upset by a section of the Luman report that said the city had to keep suspects arrested for being intoxicated until they were no longer intoxicated. “We’re going to pay for detox for people we pick up off the street?” she asked.
According to the Luman report, state law requires occasional direct observation of inmates held in the “sobering cell.”
“The minimum amount of time they are held is four hours,” the report said.
Luman told the council that the amount of time they spend at the jail depends on how intoxicated they are when they are brought in.
District 4 Councilman Gary Miller asked if the city could send its intoxicated arrestees to the county jail.
Luman said the county would not accept detox cases.
Luman, repeating an argument made by his predecessor, Chief Jeff Kirkpatrick, said when officers process prisoners at the Orange County Jail, it usually takes three to five hours. In some circumstances, the process can take 12 hours.
Luman said having an officer out of service to book a suspect in the county jail “degraded” the department’s ability to respond quickly by 25 percent.
Luman compared the cost of having a jail to the cost of not having a jail. According to Luman, the cost of having the jail, after revenue for pay-to-stay inmates, was $97,205 in Fiscal Year 2010-11. The projected cost of having a closed jail: $197,753.
District 1 Councilwoman Ellery Deaton said: “This is the first jail report that I get.”
“One of the things that dawned on me is that crime costs our city,” Deaton said.
She said the report helped her make her decision.
District 3 Councilman Gordon Shanks made a motion to receive and file the report. The motion was approved unanimously.
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