San Francisco committee forwards contested plan to replace Hall of Justice jails to full board

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors Budget & Finance Committee voted on Dec. 2 to forward a package of resolutions to replace seismically unsafe jail space at the Hall of Justice to the full board for consideration on Dec. 15, 2015.

Supporters from city departments said the replacements respond to an immediate safety risk. Naomi Kelly, city administrator, said the Hall of Justice presents seismic and operational hazards and that staff and incarcerated people remain at risk while the building is used. Barbara Garcia, director of the Department of Public Health, said the proposal increases in-jail medical and behavioral-health capacity—medical space would rise from roughly 1,200 square feet to about 7,000 square feet in the replacement design—allowing more in-custody treatment and reducing waits for placements in community programs.

Deputy Chief/acting sheriff representatives described program gains in pod-style housing and cited limits at alternative facilities: County Jail 6, the San Bruno dormitory-style site, is designed for minimum-security inmates and lacks sufficient program and mental-health space, they said. The city controller and budget officials presented a financial package that includes an $80 million state award recommended for acceptance; project budget estimates presented to the committee totaled about $240 million, with estimated debt-service over the life of the financing.

Opponents—dozens of public commenters and many advocacy organizations—urged supervisors to reject building new jail beds and instead invest in affordable housing, community-based mental-health treatment, alternatives to monetary bail and diversion programs. Speakers included formerly and currently incarcerated people, youth commissioners, the Ella Baker Center, Critical Resistance and the NAACP, who objected to the racial disparities in the jail population and urged further exploration of alternatives.

Supervisor Katie Tang moved to move the package to the full board for the Dec. 15 meeting "without recommendation" to allow fuller deliberation; Supervisor John Marr seconded, and the motion carried and was entered for the full board’s agenda. The committee action now sends the state grant acceptance, certificates-of-participation financing authorizations, real-estate acquisitions and related ordinances to the full Board of Supervisors for decision.

The departments said that if the city rejects the replacement, the options include longer-term repairs to existing facilities or substantial investments to reopen and retrofit County Jail 6 in San Bruno—an approach city analysts and corrections staff said would be costly, require substantial transport operations and provide less program space. Advocates and several supervisors asked that the city use any freed debt capacity to expand community programs and to return to the supervisors with more detail on alternatives and timing. The full board is scheduled to take up the measures on Dec. 15, 2015.