The county might build a new jail in Monterey Park to replace Sybil Brand Institute, a women’s jail that has hosted entertainment film crews instead of inmates since it closed in 1997.

Sybil Brand’s rebirth is part of a $672 million proposed overhaul of Los Angeles County’s jail system, which would build two new jails, drastically alter another, and demolish and rebuild Sybil Brand.

The idea would brush aside a more limited plan approved in 2006 that was cheaper until legal requirements made costs spiral out of control. The new plan is needed to ease overcrowding and security issues throughout the county jails, said Jan Takata, a senior manager in the county CEO’s office.

“This is something we have to do,” Takata said. “We have the U.S. district court looking at us and requiring us to take measures in terms of overcrowding and inmate security, and the existing facilities just aren’t allowing us to meet those requirements.”

The proposal, which the county Board of Supervisors will likely consider in April, has revived concerns among neighbors of the shuttered Sybil Brand women’s jail on the borders of Monterey Park and unincorporated City Terrace.

Residents were already apprehensive about a $114 million plan from 2006 to renovate and reopen the facility.

Because that escalated into a $141 million job, county officials now believe a $156 million new facility, with a safer layout and energy-efficient design, will save more money in the long run, and address more of the locals’ concerns.
The residential community that lives in the shadow of Sybil Brand has long opposed reopening the jail, which closed in 1997 and has since been used mainly for filming by shows such as “CSI,” “Monk” and “Alias.” Officials say mitigations in the new plan would eliminate many of the residents’ misgivings when the jail reopens in 2012.

Before Sybil Brand closed, the female inmates would wander into the neighborhood after being released, asking to use people’s phones or bathrooms, or even trying to prostitute themselves, said Gloria Chavez, president of City Terrace Coordinating Council. Buses carrying inmates traveled past the area’s schools, and visitors would dump drugs and weapons on an ivy-covered hill before visiting inmates, Chavez said.

“We definitely are still very much opposed to having any type of jail up on the hill, but … if they do build the prison, then we need those mitigations,” Chavez said.

Several county supervisors said they largely approve of the plan.

“In a nutshell, we’re supportive in concept,” said Roxane Marquez, spokeswoman for Supervisor Gloria Molina, whose district includes Sybil Brand. “But she feels strongly that it should have as small of an impact on the residential community as possible … We are negotiating with the CEO and the sheriff on the feasibility of constructing a road directly to Sybil Brand that would completely bypass the community.”

The road is proposed as part of the jails plan. Remote “video visitation” is recommended to cut down on traffic from visitors, and inmate booking and release would take place downtown only, so that no inmates are set free directly into the community, said Victor Rampulla, division director of the Sheriff’s Department’s Administrative Services Division.

If the “Revised Jails Plan” is approved soon, an ongoing environmental impact report would probably begin community discussions in late summer, Takata said. Construction would begin on Sybil Brand in late 2009, be completed by late 2011, then opened to 1,024 inmates in 2012, Rampulla said.

The plan would build an identical women’s jail at Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic and a similar men’s jail at Mira Loma Detention Center in Lancaster. The older half of Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles would close, and 2,000 inmates would be shifted out of the aging structure and into Mira Loma and other facilities that would be emptied when female prisoners move to the new women’s jails.

The building boom would allow the department to rid itself of the 1960’s construction at Men’s Central Jail and Sybil Brand. Inmates would be shifted from narrow hallways of jail cells that guards cannot monitor all at once to more secure “podular” jails, with cells lining a circular wall so that guards have a clear view of inmates at all times, Rampulla said.

“This is taking care of structural security issues and the overcrowding all at once,” said Steve Whitmore, spokesman for Sheriff Lee Baca.

The $672 million cost exceeds $281 million approved for jails in 2006, but the costs of that plan had climbed to well over $300 million – not counting a minimum $811 million refurbishment for MCJ, Takata said. Officials now say the 2006 plan essentially cost $1.1 billion. County staff are recommending returning $100 million of the original jail money to the county budget and having the Sheriff’s Department pay for $491 million in commercial bonds to finance the plan.

Only the planned return of the $100 million troubles Supervisor Michael Antonovich.

“There was cash set aside for it, and we should use it instead of financing it,” said Antonovich’s justice deputy, Anna Pembedjian, who echoed other county officials in saying that in a way the costs had not increased. “If you look at it as the board had allocated a quarter billion but it was going to cost a billion, ($672 million) is actually a savings.”

Supervisor Don Knabe also approves of the plan, said spokesman David Sommers.

“The biggest thing that the supervisor will be looking at is whether the sheriff can build all of these facilities within the budget they are proposing,” Sommers said. “It is a very ambitious plan … but we all know we have to do something to revamp our jail system.”

alison.hewitt@sgvn.com