People don’t like jails. Bureaucrats especially don’t like jails. Jails are expensive. Jails in California have oversight laws like the Minimum Jail Standards which require expensive things like mandated amounts of space, a toilet and running water in every jail cell. Jails are often the subject of lawsuits.
The two major sticking points with every new jail project are: Where is the money going to come from and where is the jail going to go?
Between 1850 and 1980, San Francisco built several jails and had also converted a number of existing buildings into jails. By 1980, the only jail buildings still in use were pretty long in the tooth: the San Bruno jail (built in 1934) and the Hall of Justice (opened in 1962).
Then over a span of twenty-one years, between 1985 and 2006, San Francisco built three new county jails. Each had unique challenges and moments when one or two decisions were made that were key in allowing the projects to go forward and get completed.
Beginning in 1978 and lasting until 2006, a series of Federal Court lawsuits dominated San Francisco jail planning. The basis of the suits alleged overcrowded jails, making the jails medically and physically unsafe. The City largely adopted a two-pronged approach: reduce jail population where possible with jail alternative programs, and increase bed capacity by building new facilities.
The first new jail building was rather uncontroversial. It was located on the grounds of the San Bruno jail in rural San Mateo County and was built using a “quickie” construction technique called “concrete tilt up.” Essentially wall forms for the building were laid out flat on the ground and filled with concrete. When the poured concrete had cured the walls were tilted up to create a box. This jail, initially called The Annex, was doubly cheap since it had no jail cells, only large dormitories, eliminating the need for extensive plumbing. And, since the building was actually located outside of San Francisco County, voter concern was minimal.
The Annex (later designated as “County Jail #6”) had to be one of the cheapest jails ever built – originally budgeted for six million dollars. When construction costs rose to nine million the bureaucrats had a conniption fit and called for hearing at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ Finance Committee. Ultimately the money was approved and the jail was built in a little over a year.
As is always the case, finding the funding for a new jail facility is a major problem. The late 1980s and the early 1990s was a time of extreme county jail and State prison population growth throughout California, much of it related to the crack epidemic, other drug penalties, and the State’s “three strikes” law. As a result, the State sponsored several jail construction bond measures that were placed on the ballot. Millions of dollars, with strings attached, were made available for construction of county jails throughout the State. Apart from requiring that individual projects be approved by a state agency (then called The Board of Corrections), the State construction bond money came with the additional requirement that each county come up with “matching funds.” In 1990, San Francisco qualified for a state grant of $39.5 million, but had to contribute an additional $16.5 million in matching funds.
Rather than paying the $16.5 million from the City’s budget, a general obligation bond measure for $16.5 million was placed before the voters in the November 6, 1990 election. As a general obligation bond (or “G.O.” bond) the measure needed a two-thirds vote to pass. Fortunately, it received a “Yes” vote of 69.3%. Jail bonds are hard to pass, but I think voters saw the advantage of spending $16 million in order to get $39 million in State funds. Even so, the 1990 bond measure passed by less than 3%.
As the planning for a new San Francisco County Jail facility moved forward, several unusual issues had to be resolved. How many jail beds would there be – and what kind of beds? We, of course, wanted regular, modern jail beds which could be used as either high security or low security as needed. One of the anti-jail members of the Board of Supervisors, Nancy Walker, wanted no jail at all, but if there had to be one, all of the beds should be used only for work furlough inmates. This was patently absurd. We had taken over the men’s work furlough program from Adult Probation Department and never found more than 60 eligible prisoners at any given time. The new jail was targeted for over 300 in capacity. Supervisor Walker even inserted a “work furlough only” stipulation in the legislation accepting the State money, but it was later removed.
Another thorny issue in funding a new county jail was the “art enrichment” rule.
San Francisco law required that 2% of the cost of any new building be set aside for public art that was somehow associated with the building. We had hired a relatively new architectural firm for the jail’s building design and they agreed to hire several local artists to assist in incorporating art into the building’s blueprints.
The final art enhancement results were, 1) a curved outside façade with etched (fritted) glass meant to evoke rolling fog; 2) artistic mechanical screens installed on the roof which were designed to create a movement image from the cars passing on the nearby Interstate 80 freeway and which obscured the roof’s various heating, ventilation and air conditioning devices; 3) a design on the sidewalk in front of the building that carried into the jail’s main lobby, made to look like a rug composed of pieces of a seven pointed sheriff’s star; 4) a controversial couch set in the main lobby; and, 5) a giant sheriff’s star mounted on the building’s front exterior featuring the new jail’s street address (425) as the badge number. The badge was made of fiberglass and taken to a Corvette vehicle repair shop to be painted (Corvettes are made of fiberglass).
The controversial couch would be located in the jail’s lobby so members of the public would have a place to sit while waiting for bail to be posted or when picking up a person being released from custody. Since it was supposed to mimic the curve of the jail’s exterior, the couch ended up being very curvy and very long – over sixty feet, or about the length of six or seven sofas from Macy’s. It also cost about what six or seven Macy couches would cost: over $22,000! After the couch was installed, it was instantly and mercilessly mocked as an example of government excess, and ultimately led to the entire building being nicknamed “The Glamour Slammer”. After several years of jeers, outrage and increasingly questionable hygiene, the couch was sent out to be reupholstered and somehow never returned.
But even before all of those design issues surfaced, the sticking point in moving forward with any jail was: where is it going to be located? Many government officials suggested Hunters’ Point since there was open space and neighborhood opposition would not be as organized as in other parts of the City. Obviously, Mayor Art Agnos and I were adamantly opposed to Hunters Point, as were the predominately Black neighborhood leaders. The Hunter’s Point community, and rightly so, did not want a jail “dumped” in their neighborhood. Next, it was suggested that the jail be put on the San Bruno jail grounds. I argued against that since most prisoners would be pretrial detainees and we would need buses, staff and holding areas in the Hall of Justice for the 32-mile daily round trip transport for the hundred or more court appearances that would be required five days a week.
Next it was suggested placing the new jail where the San Francisco Police Department had surface and underground parking lots next to the Hall of Justice on Bryant Street. But the police department and the Police Officers Association union threw a fit and got Mayor Agnos to veto that location.
Today, those working at or visiting the 425 Seventh Street jail may not know that the jail site used to be a two-story parking lot for the Hall of Justice, a surface open-air lot and a dank underground lot below (prominently featured in the Clint Eastwood film “Magnum Force”). It was generally referred to as the “Police parking lot” because the Police Department controlled the lot and possessed 90% of the parking spaces. The remaining spaces were allotted to some of the other Hall of Justice agencies such as the District Attorney, Probation and Courts. The Sheriff’s Department had a small block of 6 or 8 spaces in the underground portion of the lot. The number of cars that normally parked in the basement regularly exceeded the allotted spaces. Cars were often parked in the aisles, blocking the cars in their spaces. This was an accepted practice as long at the keys to the car were left behind so the blocking car could be moved to allow a blocked car to exit. I found out the hard way that this practice could also lead to a little hazing.
Since the Sheriff’s Department had only a small block of spaces, when I came to the Hall of Justice I would park in the aisle, blocking Sheriff cars, and leave my keys in the ignition. The first or second time I did this, I came back to my car only to find the doors locked with the keys inside. I then had to make an embarrassing call to the office to have someone bring another set of keys. The first time this happened, I figured that maybe I bumped the door lock on my way out of the car. The next time it happened, about a week later, I realized that the new guy was getting a little hazing. I had a spare door key made, which I kept in my billfold for years. And it came in handy from time to time.
The battle over the jail’s location went on for months without any real movement until one particular meeting in the mayor’s office when Mayor Agnos was again presented with possible locations, all of which had been discussed before. When the police parking lot was mentioned, Art acted like this was a completely new idea and said, “That’s where it should go. You can work with that, right Chief?” Chief Frank Jordan was in his last months before retirement and was generally a go-along guy. He agreed that it could be made to work. And that was that.
Of course, a couple of years later, Frank Jordan became Mayor Frank Jordan and was none too pleased when cost overruns on the jail he helped to green light in the police parking lot became a civic embarrassment.
The final cost of the 440-bed 7th Street jail came in a $53 million, some $3.5 million over the original budget. Initially only half the facility was opened because only half the needed staffing costs had been approved by the City. Not too long after it first opened, another $4.5 million was allocated to open up the other half.
Some final notes about the 7th Street jail. San Francisco’s original mid-19th century shoreline was roughly just to the east of Bryant Street. Mission Bay and Mission Creek beaches and wetlands once covered the general area, so before construction of the new jail building could begin, hundreds of steel pilings had to be driven into the ground and through the mud and sand to the bedrock below to stabilize the footprint. So the new jail was built on what was essentially beach property 90 years before.
The pile driving process made so much noise and created such intense vibrations that the Superior Court (located right next door in the Hall of Justice) issued an order that pile driving could only be conducted during non-court hours. This meant the work was done at night and on weekends and added expensive overtime and night differential labor costs to the project.
Eventually, the new jail at 425 7th Street, fully opened in December of 1994 and today it houses all county jail female custodies, a prisoner classification pod, and a medical and psychiatric pod co-staffed by Department of Public Health professionals.
The next major jail construction project was the most difficult. The old San Bruno jail opened in 1934 and by the early 1970s was slowly falling apart. The City continued under a Federal Court order to reduce jail overcrowding and had already been held in contempt of court for not succeeding and was being fined thousands of dollars every month. Additionally, the Federal Court order had been expanded to address the dilapidated condition of the old jail. There were large cracks in the walls; the window mechanisms were corroded so inmates broke windows when it was hot and stuffed paper or clothes in the broken windows when it was cold. Concrete chunks fell 40 feet from the ceiling to the rotunda floor below so often that a metal net was installed to catch the pieces. The jail was so notoriously bad that one local newspaper compared it to a legendary hellhole prison in Calcutta with a cover story titled, “The Black Hole of San Francisco.”
The desire to replace the aging jail was fairly universal. I say “fairly universal” because there was still a politically active “no more jails” coalition lobbying against any jail construction, even though one of the main goals was to improve prisoner conditions.
In the case of the Bruno jail replacement, location was not a big issue. We had acres of open space at the jail site where a new jail could be built. While there was some grumbling from surrounding neighbors, they were San Mateo residents and not of great concern to San Francisco politicians. The local residents’ major issue was security and escapes. Their concerns were largely addressed when they saw that the new jail would have be no outdoor recreation and would be a “direct supervision” facility, built with high security in mind.
The big problem with replacing the San Bruno jail was money. Where would it come from? Since the project was likely to cost more than $150 million, finding funds in the City’s budget was out of the question. As a result, the City went on a multi-year year quest to find funding.
By 1992, former Police Chief Frank Jordan had been elected Mayor. At his direction, the city put forth a general obligation bond measure of $158,100,000 on the November 3, 1992 ballot. As a G.O. bond measure, it required a two-thirds vote to pass.
General Obligation bond measures are a tough sell. A G.O. bond creates a new tax amount added to property taxes. The new tax is used to pay off the money borrowed to create the bond amount. So, in San Francisco, a general obligation bond measure starts off with opposition from owners of commercial buildings and expensive homes. They don’t want their property taxes to go up. Add to that group are voters who are generally against tax increases of any type. Then, add the “no more jails” coalition who campaign against the very idea of any jail construction.
There was a spirited campaign both for and against Proposition B, the jail bond measure. The SF Voters Handbook contained seven pages of paid arguments, pro and con. Most arguments were well reasoned, others very passionate. Take this one for example:
“Do you really want to spend $266,000,000 in increased property taxes to build a bigger, more comfortable jail? You gotta be kidding. The big spending politicians who want to increase property taxes and rents are the ones who ought to be put in jail.”
I found this obtuse argument particularly interesting because it was submitted by my former campaign manager, Jack Davis, who now lobbied on behalf of landlords.
The 1992 jail replacement Proposition B ballot measure received 57.3% of the vote. A majority of voters approved the idea, but not the necessary two-thirds. Back to square one.
The City looked into several ways of financing a jail, including selling the property to a third party, allowing a for-profit company to build the jail and then lease the jail to the City. This and other ideas were rejected, usually because they were even more expensive.
Finally, Mayor Jordan said that we should just put the measure back before the voters and that he would mount a vigorous campaign to secure its success. So, in November 1994, the jail general obligation bond was back before the voters, this time with the project costing $195,600,000. When I was out campaigning for the bond measure, Proposition A, I was rather surprised to listen to Mayor Jordan’s presentations on the upcoming election and hear no mention of Proposition A. So much for the vigorous campaign from the Mayor’s office.
The 1994 jail bond measure received a “Yes” vote from 54% of the voters. Another loss and another non-starter for replacing the decaying San Bruno jail.
Time passed, options were considered and Assemblyman Willie Brown defeated Mayor Frank Jordan in the November 1995 election. Shortly after taking office in January 1996, Mayor Brown called a meeting about the jail litigation. The meeting was attended by City Attorney Louise Renne, her staff, several of the Mayor’s staff and me. I had come prepared.
After an election, an interested party can get a campaign consultant to create a precinct-by-precinct color-coded map. San Francisco has over 450 precincts. The consultant colors each precinct in a different color according to the percent of the vote on a particular issue or candidate. For example, all precincts voting “yes” on a bond measure would be colored by vote percentage: if 60% to 70% of voters in a precinct voted “yes” on a bond measure, the precinct would be colored red. If a precinct voted in the 50% to 60% range, the precinct would be blue, and so on. The map shows how neighborhoods or parts of neighborhoods vote on the issue. The map becomes quite colorful, and gives a good visual picture of the pulse of the City voters. A vote map like this is a major strategic tool for future campaigns. For the meeting with Mayor Brown, I brought the color-coded maps of the jail bond measures in both 1992 and 1994. One had to look very hard to find those few red precincts that voted above 60%.
To start the meeting, City Attorney Renne gave an overview of the Federal litigation, the failed bond measures, and the fines being paid to the Federal Court. After her presentation, Mayor Brown said that the best approach would be to put the matter before the voters a third time, but this time he would personally campaign to ensure its passage. At this point, I interrupted and asked Mayor Brown to look over the colored maps of the last two jail bond measures. I slid the maps over the conference table to his seat. He stood up, leaned over the table and looked closely at both of the maps for about 45 seconds, his head scanning back and forth. This was a political language he understood well. He then looked up and said, “OK, this thing won’t pass the next time either, will it? Louise, find another way to fund it.” End of meeting. A new path had been chosen. It took Willie Brown less than a minute to come to the conclusion that many of us had struggled with for several years.
The result was a form of self-finance called Certificates of Participation where the City sold its own bonds and paid the interest and principal over 30 years out of a dedicated portion of the General Fund. The bonds were sold; a construction contract was signed; the Federal Court case was dismissed. It took time, but the new San Bruno jail would open just over a decade after that meeting with Mayor Willie Brown.
When the new San Bruno facility was up and running in August of 2006, the prisoners at the old jail were transferred to the new one. Several years later the old Bruno jail was finally demolished and carted away in pieces.
