On Tuesday, April 13, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department gave an update on the ongoing expansion project of the James A. Musick correctional facility, during the Irvine City Council meeting.

Irvine residents expressed continued opposition to the reopening of the James A. Musick Facility, which is an Irvine-based jail, utilized by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department for a variety of uses including immigration detention.

As one of five jail facilities in the Orange County system, the Musick facility has been closed since 2019. Now, the Sheriff’s Department reports that an ongoing expansion project of two separate buildings, which will house more than 800 beds, is nearly 30 percent complete.

Irvine residents are not strangers to the Musick jail in Irvine, and have continued to voice frustration over the years, continuously saying they oppose the expansion and reopening of the facility.

Now, as the project nears completion many residents are asking the Irvine City Council to intervene in some capacity.

While Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan said despite the fact that the council opposes the Musick expansion project, she said there is little influence the city has on the scope of the project, considering the Musick facility is on county land. Additionally, Khan said the jail expansion project was approved at the county level by the Board of Supervisors.

“This has been going on for quite some time. I know there’s been opposition — the city actually sued the county, in trying to stop the expansion for being approved — and we lost that case,” Khan explained in an interview with Irvine Weekly. “At this point, the decision making is in the hands of the Board of Supervisors.”

Khan said she is open to hosting a public hearing, but that will only go so far, ultimately adding that until the city can convince the Board of Supervisors to side with residents, the city is likely out of options in halting this project further.

“Until we have someone from the Board of Supervisors willing to be in that public hearing, it’s really not going to accomplish much,” she said. “What I’d like to see happen is, if there’s any interest from the Board of Supervisors, to be in that public hearing — then that would be worthwhile.”

Khan said a public hearing regarding the Musick jail expansion has yet to be scheduled.

During the April 13 presentation, Orange County Sheriff Assistant Chief Jason Park explained that the Musick Facility was built in 1963, and was closed in 2019 in order to perform facility upgrades.

In terms of funding, the Sheriff’s Department will take advantage of $180 million of federal funding made available through AB 900, and SB 1022, to complete the jail expansion project.

“It affords the opportunity to update housing facilities that we have into something that’s far more contemporary and also a facility that will be more secure than the facility was prior to that,” he said. “The funding came from different funding sources, post Assembly Bill 109 – the California Public Safety Realignment Act.”

The other source of funding comes with $80 million from SB 1022.

Construction on the Musick Jail expansion began in Summer 2020, with inmate occupancy expected to begin in 2023. Once completed, the Musick jail will hold 896 beds total.

Irvine City Attorney Jeff Melching explained that Irvine has been engaged in some type of legal discussion over the operation of Musick Jail. In fact, Melching said there was a time when Musick could have been regarded as “one of the largest jail facilities in the state,” in terms of beds.

“Many times over the years, the city of Irvine attempted to influence the county’s decision making with regard to this piece of property,” Melching explained. “In 2012, and then  in 2014, post AB 109, the state issued a bunch of funding to facilitate more local jail construction, and the city of Irvine was very active throughout that period, in really opposing both the granting of funding, and then the manner in which the environmental documents for that funding was approved.”

Melching continued to emphasize that without regulatory authority, Irvine was limited to the power of influence.

Despite the city’s limited options Khan remains hopeful.

“There’s still time to halt it and talk about maybe converting the facility that would be more meaningful to the community,” Khan said. “But, again, that’s got to come from the Board of Supervisors — this going going to affect our community in so many ways.”

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