By Crescenzo Vellucci
The Vanguard Sacramento Bureau Chief
SACRAMENTO, CA – Sacramento community groups – which last week blasted Sacramento County’s plan to spend nearly $1 billion for expansion of the county’s main downtown jail – are claiming victory Tuesday after the county announced plans to “pause” all work on the controversial project.
“After a year of tireless advocacy and in-depth research, we have successfully exposed the factually inaccurate, biased, and corrupt decision-making process that resulted in the county’s decision to re-start the previously canceled Main Jail expansion project,” said Jael Barnes, Pretrial Justice Organizer with Decarcerate Sacramento.
Decarcerate Sacramento, in a prepared statement, said Deputy County Executive Eric Jones has announced the county will pause “all work on the Main Jail Annex project until the county can get a third party review of all work performed by their architectural consultant, Nacht & Lewis, related to the project through a competitive bid process.”
Decarcerate said Jones commented the county is “pausing that work with that consultant… based on a variety of issues that were found in some of the reports. Department of General Services will be getting a third party review to re-look at the jail annex project and confirm that any conceptual plans of it are directly tied to the Mays Consent Decree.”
Opponents of the project noted, “It’s important to remember that the county voted to cancel this project in March of 2021, and only reconsidered it after believing in faulty architectural studies by Nacht & Lewis that argued jail expansion was the only option for meeting the legal requirements of the Mays Consent Decree. We are proving, again, that that is not true.”
“While this pause does not guarantee a full cancellation of the proposed jail expansion, this remains a significant win for our campaign,” said Kari Hamilton of Decarcerate Sacramento. “It shows that our advocacy is working and we are one step closer to canceling this project for good.”
Last week, dozens of community organizations wrote the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors that the expansion should be shelved because of “significant errors” and unnecessary “superfluous design requirements.”
The letter began, “We write to you as a collective of architects and organizations to bring attention to critical issues around the decision to construct the Intake and Health Services Facility” jail building next to the downtown Main Jail.”
The 20-page letter documents in excruciatingly fine detail “how the county’s architectural consultant Nacht & Lewis made conclusions in their architectural studies that contain significant errors.
“It is our hope that, supplied with this new information, you will recognize that it is not necessary to build a new jail facility to meet the requirements of the Mays Consent Decree. If your goal is to meet the Mays Consent Decree in the most fiscally responsible way, there are other, more efficient and effective ways to do so,” the letter added.
The letter notes eight primary problems with the construction, including, the facility is outside of the Mays Consent Decree, the plans “severely underutilizes” jail space, uses “inflated” bed needs, is designed for a nine story tower not three story annex, it “misuse(s)” funds allocated for ADA renovation, is “wasteful” in design, doesn’t address “spatial limitations” at the jail and ignores “opportunities to rapidly reduce jail population.”
“The County has had nearly four years since the Mays Consent Decree was finalized to make relatively simple improvements in the Main Jail to improve accessibility and confidentiality for those who are incarcerated, but it’s clear that the jail annex has been prioritized over all other solutions, no matter the cost to the public,” the letter stated.
The groups also questioned the planners’ math.
“The County wants to spend $2,695 per square foot to expand the jail—that’s 8 times more than the national average of building costs for medical facilities,” the letter notes, adding, in “New York, NY it cost $540 per square foot in 2023 to build a medical facility. Based on Nacht & Lewis’ proposal for the jail annex, it would cost Sacramento County $3,811 per square foot with the approved $925 Million price tag—excluding interest ($925,000,000 / 242,676 sq ft = $3,811).”
“We recognize that public procurement is more expensive, and $925 Million is the total estimated project cost, not just the build costs. However, typical build costs are near 70 percent of the total project costs. This would still put the Sacramento County Main Jail Annex project cost at four times higher than the expected cost of a medical facility built in New York City and 8 times higher than the national average of building costs for medical facilities,” the letter notes.
The analysis added, “Jails are also typically much cheaper to build than hospitals are, usually ranging from $200-$400/square foot in build costs. Santa Clara County approved a new “mental health jail” in 2022 that they estimate will be a net project cost of $390 Million for a 500 bed 291,000 square foot jail. This is $1,340 per square foot. Sacramento County is looking at a project price of more than double this figure.
“Similar to the quiet inflation of estimated bed needs by Nacht & Lewis in their inaccurate and misleading analysis, Sacramento County residents have seen surprising and significant increases in project cost estimates brought to the Board by the Department of General Services—rapidly inflating project estimates from December 2022 to August 2023, with the jail annex cost increasing from $450 Million to at least $654 Million, up to $925 Million, in just eight months.
“If the County’s goal is to meet the Mays Consent Decree in the most fiscally responsible way, there are other, more efficient and effective ways to do so.”
Among the organizations, architects, and architectural firms signing the letter are, Designing Justice + Designing Spaces, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundation of Northern California, Sacramento Area Chapter of ACLU, Sacramento Valley Psychological Association (SVPA), Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Prison Policy Initiative, Office of: Office Bz Zhang, AIA, NOMA Design As Protest Collective, United CORE Alliance, Social Justice PolitiCorps, Decarcerate Sacramento, Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) Sacramento, Kim Carter Martinez and Amy Hines-Shaikh, Wild Cat Consulting Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB), Riverside All of Us Or None, California Coalition for Women Prisoners, Anti Police-Terror Project Sacramento, San Francisco Pretrial Diversion Project, La Defensa, Care First California Coalition, Sacramento Homeless Union, Dignity and Power Now, Mental Health Association of Portland and Presente.org.
