City Sues to Keep Its Jail

The city of Thousand Oaks filed a lawsuit Friday in an effort to force Ventura County to keep open a local jail, which the sheriff plans to close next month to help cover a $10-million budget gap.

“We had hoped that the county would be able to provide funds to keep the facility in operation, but Sheriff Bob Brooks has told us he is being forced to close the jail on Aug. 17,” City Atty. Mark Sellers said in a prepared statement.

The city’s action came a day after Brooks joined with Dist. Atty. Greg Totten in a lawsuit against the county seeking to restore full funding to their agencies. Brooks and Totten contend that the Board of Supervisors unlawfully altered a local public safety funding ordinance in 2001, slowing the growth of their budgets.

Supervisors have countered that the previous funding formula, which allowed law enforcement budgets to grow by 77% over a decade, was so flawed that it could have bankrupted the county if left unchanged. The county is threatening a countersuit, alleging that the original ordinance violates the state’s Budget Act.

Meanwhile, Thousand Oaks officials say that their city pays $17 million a year to contract with the sheriff for law enforcement and jail services, and they should not be forced to spend additional money on a lawsuit to force the county to live up to its contractual obligations.

“It’s always disappointing when public agencies can’t resolve their differences in any way outside the courts,” said Councilman Dennis Gillette. “But we’ve been placed in the unfortunate position where we feel we have no alternative.”

If the East County Jail were closed, Gillette said, local law enforcement services would be compromised because officers would be forced to drive suspects to the main jail in Ventura, taking deputies off the streets for long periods and slowing response times.

The jail -- which also serves Moorpark, Simi Valley and unincorporated areas -- takes in 3,500 suspects a year.

“These are real hours and lost time we’re paying to have police on the streets,” said Gillette, a retired assistant sheriff for Ventura County. “Public safety has always been our No. 1 priority.”

Brooks and Totten contend that their budget targets for the 2003-2004 fiscal year are so skimpy that they will be forced to trim their departments, endangering the county’s reputation for safety.

Last month, the sheriff closed the women’s honor farm in Ojai and moved its 200 inmates to the Todd Road Jail near Santa Paula in a move that will save $4.6 million. Brooks said that shuttering the East County Jail would provide another $800,000 in savings.

At the heart of the budget battle is the Board of Supervisors’ 2001 decision to alter the county’s public safety funding law by holding law enforcement’s annual inflationary growth to the consumer price index, about 3.7%. Public safety enjoyed 7% to 10% inflationary hikes each year for much of the 1990s.

The local funding ordinance also provides that four public safety departments -- the sheriff, the district attorney, the public defender and probation -- share up to $50 million annually from a statewide voter-approved sales tax.

Faced with their own budget problems, county officials have argued that they have no choice but to hold the line on law enforcement funding. They pointed out that they were forced last month to approve $17 million in job and service reductions for the new fiscal year and warned that additional reductions may be necessary once the cash-strapped state approves its budget.