The state has awarded San Benito County a grant worth more than $15 million to use on a jail expansion project expected to add about 60 beds and ease local pressures from prison overcrowding.
That grant requires a 5 percent match from the county, and the state will allow the local jurisdiction to make up most of the amount by adding in an appraised value of land already owned by San Benito and other costs – such as staff time and prior consultant work – which won’t actually add any additional burden to local coffers, said Capital Project Manager Adam Goldstone with the public works department. Taking out the land value alone, it leaves a maximum, actual cost of less than $500,000. Plus, the probation department has pledged “several hundred thousand dollars” in funds allocated previously by the state from AB109, which funneled prison inmates to county jails, Goldstone said.
Sheriff Darren Thompson underscored that the county will get the jail project “done for a ridiculously low cost.”
“Every penny at this point is important,” said the sheriff, whose department has been hit especially hard in recent years by county layoffs.
As for the schedule, project consultants expect to have construction started in about two years, with the building phase lasting another 18 to 24 months. That would lead to an opening at some point in 2017.
“We are actually just starting design on it now,” Goldstone said. “We’re still working on the final schedule.”
The county’s relative progress on its jail expansion project – compared with some other counties – came with bumps early on. During the first round of prospective grant awards in 2008, the county actually was slated to receive the same amount but turned it down because the state had required a much larger match. Now off the shelf, the project involves building a new facility directly east of the current jail on Flynn Road. Those 60 new beds, meanwhile, will add to the capacity of 142 inmates at the current location.
Goldstone said the two buildings – per state rules, they have to be separated by at least a hall or bridgeway – will share many functions while the new one will improve some areas of the current jail that “aren’t functioning really well.”
For one thing, there will be more program space, he said.
“So they can conduct learning and training and things like that,” he said. “It’s also going to expand intake and release areas and medical services, and a little bit of extra administrative space.”
Goldstone said the sheriff’s office and state officials have been cooperative throughout the process. San Benito County has had an advantage in that it already owned the land – one of the primary bureaucratic roadblocks for other areas.
“So far it’s all been working out,” Goldstone said. “There are a lot of hoops to jump through but we are in a pretty good position.”
