By John W. Gonzalez
San Antonio Express-News
SAN ANTONIO — County commissioners agreed Wednesday to explore more options to accommodate the steadily-growing jail population without more bricks and mortar.
The officials are mulling a $72.7 million proposal to build inmate-processing and jail-diversion facilities west of downtown. They’re delaying a decision on the plan for at least three months to allow consideration of less costly options, ranging from vastly scaled-back construction plans to revamped magistration processes.
“Now we’re going from the Cadillac to the Chevy,” said Commissioner Paul Elizondo, who portrayed the new building plans as a consultant’s dream with “a whole bunch of goodies.”
He was referring to a 5-year-old proposal to build a county-operated central magistration facility next to the adult jail, which opened in 1988.
Since 2003, the county has leased space in the city’s Frank Wing Building to process arrestees before they are transported several blocks to the jail. The proposed building, with 189,000 square feet, could hold detainees for 72 hours, allowing them to be screened for jail-diversion programs.
But the county has numerous options beyond that construction, officials said. Among them are adding to the jail, expanding the county’s use of the Wing Building and relocating medical services to a separate facility.
There’s also hope that tinkering with various jail and judicial processes could have a big impact on mitigating the jail population, which stands at 3,865 inmates. Although the tally is below the jail’s 4,600 capacity, projections continue to show that level will be reached by 2016.
County planners have identified several processes and policies that could be changed to produce direct and indirect savings. They include reducing the resetting of jail inmates’ court dates and finding alternatives to jailing those arrested for failure to appear.
“What we’re trying to do here is meet our jail bed demand by properly managing those beds, and delay the need to build and operate new beds,” said Seth Mitchell, the county’s operations and planning manager.
“We’re trying to do both of those things in a way that protects public safety and provides value to the taxpayers,” he said. But at the same time, the county needs to brace for future growth, he added.
Mitchell said planners will look at ways to trim millions from the $72 million proposal, which could avert more jail construction for 15-20 years, but commissioners also instructed them to analyze less costly options.
Elizondo pointed out that the cost includes construction only “before you turn the lights on” and provide staff to operate the new facility.
In terms of cost, “it’s another jail, is what it is,” Elizondo said.
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