More than five years after the groundbreaking ceremony, Santa Barbara County leaders declared the Northern Branch Jail project complete with speeches and a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday.
The 376-bed facility at 2301 Black Road near Santa Maria was funded by $80 million in state grant funding and about $40 million in county funds.
Construction delays pushed completion years past the original timeline, and the county is in litigation with its original design firm, Rosser International, which declared bankruptcy and left the project in 2019.
The Sheriff’s Department expects to start booking people into custody there in early 2022.
The North County facility will be used in addition to the larger Main Jail near Santa Barbara, which has a $25 million rehabilitation project planned for its aging buildings.
Sheriff Bill Brown has long pushed for a North County jail for Santa Barbara County, and on Thursday, talked about the people and the years of work that made the facility a reality.
The Northern Branch Jail will have more programs available for people in custody than the Main Jail facility, including drug and alcohol treatment programs, according to the Sheriff’s Department.
Brown said the new jail means “enhanced safety and convenience for the community, better working conditions for our incredible custody staff, and more opportunity for revitalized lives” as well as lower rates of recidivism for people have been incarcerated in the jail.
The jail’s motto, which is carved into the front of the building in Latin and printed on interior hallways in English, is, “Every person is the architect of their own destiny,” attributed to an ancient Roman statesman.
Brown said the inscription is meant to “get inmates to recognize they can chart a different course for themselves.”
Each housing unit has common spaces attached as well as video visitation equipment and court video rooms, so people in custody will not be moved around the jail facility as much as they are in the Main Jail. Meals will be delivered to each housing unit as well.
Some of the housing units are designed for direct supervision, with a custody deputy’s desk within the housing unit and open-cell-door policy allowing people in custody to access the day room, “yard” area, video visitation and multipurpose rooms all within that housing unit.
Custody deputies will get to know the people in their housing unit and be the first point of contact for requests and questions, Sheriff’s Department staff said during a facility tour Thursday.
Other housing units are restricted housing where people will be kept in one-person or two-person cells most of the time, except when they are allowed to individually use the day rooms and “yard” areas in that housing unit. There are also observation cells and safety cells, transportation-corridor cells for people on their way to and from court appearances, and medical unit rooms.
Capital Project Division manager John Green said the building was substantially complete on July 30 and that the Sheriff’s Department has occupied the offices and started training in the facility.
“We are very, very happy to get this one to this point. It has been a long road and a very complicated project. We’re looking forward to opening it up and operating it as intended,” Green told Noozhawk this week. “The contractor’s telling us they expect to have final completion on Nov. 30. We’re really down to just a few punch list items.
“At this point I don’t foresee any other major delay issues.”
When asked about the years of construction delays, Green responded with a long list of issues: the architecture firm went out of business and left the project; significant change orders and design changes; regulatory agency compliance changes; “inclement weather” that turned the excavation site into a lake; supply delays; and COVID-19-related supply chain and staffing effects.
“Given the litigation that we have currently with Rosser, I probably don’t want to comment on the nature of the change orders or magnitude of those change orders,” Green said.
On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors approved the seventh amendment to the contract with Kitchell/CEM Inc. for construction management, architectural and engineering services. Kitchell took over architectural services after Rosser International left the job.
The amendment increased the contract amount by $460,869 to $6,151,903.
Santa Barbara County pursued grant funding for a new jail because of the overcrowding and conditions at the Main Jail near Santa Barbara. The number of people kept in custody has decreased during the past decade and has been mostly in the 500- to 700-person range during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to sheriff records.
The $25 million rehabilitation project is meant to address major deferred maintenance issues at the Main Jail facility, and the county hired a consultant to do an assessment of the county’s custody facility needs into the future.
During Thursday’s event, Board of Supervisors chair Bob Nelson talked about his past opposition to Measure S, the proposed sales tax to help fund the new jail, and his underlying financial concerns. The tax measure failed, but the need for the facility didn’t go away, he said.
Nelson said the Northern Branch Jail already has a maintenance fund established, as will future county capital projects.
“Although today is a day to reflect and celebrate the building of this, it is also a reminder of how we got here, and that it’s only one generation away, one Board of Supervisors away from taking that opportunity and stopping making that commitment. It’s necessary for us in the future to leave this county better off than how we got it,” Nelson said.
— Noozhawk managing editor Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
