Sheriff Curtis Hill has a vision.
Sitting in his cramped 55-year-old sheriff’s office with a leaky
roof and closets that serve as offices, he envisions a new criminal
justice center which combines his office, the court house,
probation department, district attorney’s office and juvenile hall
near the county jail.
Hollister – Sheriff Curtis Hill has a vision.
Sitting in his cramped 55-year-old sheriff’s office with a leaky roof and closets that serve as offices, he envisions a new criminal justice center which combines his office, the court house, probation department, district attorney’s office and juvenile hall near the county jail.
“We could build a whole criminal justice center in order to have the jail, courts, juvenile hall, everything in walking distance,” Hill said. “My concern is how we can have the most efficiency and save taxpayer dollars at the same time.”
To determine exactly what he needs, Hill commissioned an investigator out of a Dallas, Texas firm called Facility Group to prepare a 20-year space needs assessment of the sheriff’s department, probation department, juvenile hall, county jail, superior court and district attorney’s office, he said.
The investigator completed the first round of interviews and tours this week, which Hill paid for using $30,000 from $500,000 of state-allocated funding. The study will include the cost of a new sheriff’s office, how big it would be, where it could be located and a host of other logistical aspects, he said.
And when the county can build up the finances to tackle the problem, Hill would like to move all the criminal justice buildings currently located downtown to an area on Flynn Road where the county jail is located.
However, Hill could face steep opposition to his idea from downtown businesses who rely on county employees frequenting their shops and restaurants, and others who want the county’s legal hub centered in the heart of town, said Supervisor Reb Monaco.
“While I respect Curtis a lot, there’s significant opposition to it,” Monaco said. “Local downtown people and others think it would be too isolated – if they move in the direction of keeping things centrally located it would be better to keep it downtown.”
New business owner Christine Richard, who recently opened Bistro 427 on San Benito Street, said she frequently serves county or court employees on their lunch breaks and would miss their business if they left.
“It would hurt the business, and not only for me but for any other business around the area,” she said. “If I serve 50 lunches, maybe 15 people are from around the area. And 15 people is 15 people every day.”
While Monaco hasn’t made up his mind and there are no cost estimates on such a project, he said the county’s financial constraints mean a discussion of building new facilities is at least three to fours years out.
“There is a space need, nobody can argue that. And we need to be looking at it now because it is fairly complex,” he said. “One thing I favor is at least a lot of people are looking at a lot of options. I think he (Hill) has good, rational reasons, but I don’t know that the rest of the community would fall in line with that.”
Peter Rich, senior vice president of the Facility Group, said he toured all the criminal justice departments and over the next two months will develop a 20-year projected space needs outlook, broken into five-year increments. He plans to outline various options for solutions to growth problems in the future, along with conceptual designs and cost analysis, he said.
“The sheriff’s department definitely needs a new building,” Rich said. “I understand that the sheriff’s office is the No. 1 priority and the court house is the second priority.”
Rich said building a criminal justice center around the jail would provide plenty of parking and potential for future growth.
“There is no place to grow in the current facilities,” he said.
District Attorney John Sarsfield echoed Hill’s frustration and said he believes consolidating the criminal justice departments in the future is a “great idea.”
While Sarsfield said he understands some issues local merchants would have with such a move, he said it’s imperative logistical changes are made to accommodate growth.
“For sheer efficiency within the court system and the law enforcement community it would be effective,” he said. “I don’t care where it’s located, the existing resources are inadequate. And there’s a real safety factor in transporting people from the jail across town.”
Sarsfield’s only concern is that his office be near the court, and Monaco said based on the court’s needs, there’s no way to expand it to an adequate size and keep it where it is.
Funding and staffing for the court go through the state of California. San Benito’s court house was built in 1960, and the entire facility is in a dire need of an upgrade, according to Superior Court Judge Steven Sanders. The state has committed to building a new courthouse for about $20 million by 2010, but whether it will remain downtown or be built somewhere else has not been decided.
Many questions need to be answered before buildings are moved and large sums of money spent, but Hill maintains his department is the most critical in terms of needing a complete overhaul – and as soon as possible.
The current sheriff’s department, which Hill said houses 35 people but is built to house about 10, makes for cramped quarters, files stashed in decrepit jail cells and leaky roofs and toilets – among numerous state and federal violations because of shoddy infrastructure, Hill said. Additionally, it doesn’t have sufficient room to interview witnesses or suspects, has poor plumbing and many of the offices don’t have proper ventilation, Hill said.
“We’re spending an inordinate amount of money just to keep people healthy,” Hill said. “It’s a joke.”
Hill didn’t have an idea as to how much a new facility would cost, but said when it gets built will largely depend on how the state rebounds from its current budget crisis.
“I want a space study done so the Board (of Supervisors) will have something to move on if they decide to go now, in two years or in five years,” he said.
Erin Musgrave covers public safety for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637-5566, ext. 336 or em*******@fr***********.com.
