Redlands: Department has been without a jail for months.
By MICHAEL PERRAULT
The Press-Enterprise
REDLANDS — Behind the scenes, architect and engineer Timothy Wilson is working on an unfamiliar design: a portable jail.
Not unlike portable classrooms set up on school campuses, the jail will be anchored to a foundation and sturdy enough to have holding cells, interrogation and evidence rooms and ample safety features, Wilson said.
It can’t be built soon enough, Redlands police say. They have been without a city jail for almost six months, ever since the department vacated the aging, structurally unsound Safety Hall.
Officers have adapted. They administer Breathalyzer tests in a clerks’ break room at the West Substation on Brookside Avenue.
It was at that substation, which operates out of a storefront in a shopping center, that a 29-year-old Crestline parolee arrested for shoplifting last month slipped out a back door. Police tackled him and brought him back.
Redlands Police Chief Jim Bueermann said doing without a jail is among many challenges facing the department. He is proud that officers have worked diligently despite having no lockers and being spread out in offices all across the city.
Police took furloughs to help close a $5million budget gap and have taken on extra work because of 15 officer and 20 civilian staff vacancies in the department.
“We spend a lot of time in our department talking about accepting reality as we confront it,” Bueermann said. “While we don’t like it, we’re not going to change it by complaining.”
Bueermann said officers understand that the city is wrestling with daunting revenue shortfalls.
But being without a jail poses safety issues, and city officials realize that.
Usually suspects would be housed in a secure holding facility while they are booked and until they can be transferred to county jail. Without a secure facility, suspects sit in office chairs as they are booked at the substation storefront.
Officers also must escort handcuffed, sometimes unruly prisoners up and down stairs at the city annex. That poses potential liability issues, Bueermann said.
Police with combative suspects must avoid sharp desk corners and keep sharp objects away from them.
Temporary and permanent solutions for the jail and police headquarters are being hashed out by a committee of police, civilian staff and two council members, said Oscar Orci, community development director.
“The city has approved a four-phase interim relocation plan,” Orci said.
Electrical, plumbing and other preparatory work is under way in the city corporate yard on West Park Avenue. Once the jail’s design is approved by the California Department of Corrections, the modular unit will be set up.
Firefighters will move into modular dormitories and offices to vacate Fire Station No. 4, which will be renovated for patrol officers, forensic and record-keeping staff.
Dispatchers already have moved into the station, police said.
The temporary jail, estimated to cost $310,000 to $500,000, could be in place within a few months, city officials said.
Looking ahead, Orci said preliminary estimates indicate a 75,000-square-foot police headquarters with 300 parking spaces would require 2.5 acres and cost as much as $37million.
Voters may be asked to support a bond measure to pay for it, council members said.
Bueermann said officers eagerly await the jail.
“They’ve gone the extra mile here - extra 100 miles, really,” Bueermann said. “It’ll be a lot safer for us.”
Copyright 2009 The Press Enterprise, Inc.