County to send a letter authorizing negotiations with SMC to share lease on Civic Center property with the Sheriff’s Department.
By Knowles Adkisson / The Malibu Times
Plans to reopen the Malibu Sheriff’s substation appear to be progressing.
The reopened substation would occupy a portion of the old substation facility on Los Angeles County-owned land in Malibu’s Civic Center, with the rest slated for a satellite campus for Santa Monica College.
Joel Bellman, spokesman for Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, told The Malibu Times on Friday that a letter authorizing the lease of the property to SMC is expected to be submitted to the County Board of Supervisors in a matter of weeks. Assuming the letter is approved, L.A. County CEO William Fujioka would then begin negotiations with SMC officials over a lease of the property for a substation, which Bellman said could take several months.
The substation was closed more than 10 years ago because of budgetary reasons. Services provided to Malibu by the Sheriff’s Department are currently based out of the Malibu/Lost Hills station, more than 10 miles away, via Malibu Canyon Road.
Sheriff Lee Baca has been advocating the reopening of the Malibu substation since its closing, largely to combat the distance deputies must travel.
Supervisor Yaroslavsky has clashed with Baca in the past over the future of the facility, with Yaroslavsky wanting the site to be used by SMC and Baca claiming it for his department. In April, the Malibu Public Facilities Authority announced that the facility would be used for both purposes.
“The Sheriff’s obviously been pushing very hard to get something there. And Zev’s been pushing back because we’ve made a significant, but informal, commitment to SMC,” Bellman said. “But I think Zev was persuaded that there is a need and there could be a way to meet that need within the framework of negotiating a lease that accommodates all parties that SMC’s OK with and we’re comfortable with.”
Malibu City Manager Jim Thorsen told The Malibu Times it was his understanding the old Sheriff’s substation facility would probably be torn down, and a new community college campus for SMC constructed on the land. Plans about how to fund the project were “still up in the air” between SMC and the county, he believed at this point.
The City of Malibu contracts out to the Sheriff’s Department to provide law enforcement services to the city. Since a new substation would bring added services to Malibu, there has been speculation over whether the City of Malibu would help fund some of the costs for the project. Thorsen said it was “very possible” the City of Malibu would foot some of the bill.
Neal Tyler, Sheriff’s division chief for Field Operations Region 1, which includes Malibu, told The Malibu Times in a phone interview that reopening the Malibu substation would help alleviate travel inefficiencies for Sheriff’s deputies who have to drive from Lost Hills. Tyler said tentative plans for the reopened substation include lockers for deputies and the daily presence of emergency planning personnel for disasters such as wildfires, earthquakes and mudslides. Deputies could park their cars and refuel them at the substation.
It would not, however, include a jail.
“If it were possible to build some kind of jail facility in the city of Malibu it would be ideal, [but] it would also be expensive to operate because it takes a jailing staff and there are so many legal standards about running a jail properly,” Tyler said.
Sheriff Baca, in a Jan. 5 Los Angeles Times story, seemed to imply that a local substation could help avoid situations like the Mitrice Richardson case.
Baca and the Sheriff’s Department have taken heavy criticism for releasing Richardson in 2009 after midnight from the remote Lost Hills station without a cell phone, purse or means of transportation and showing signs of mental illness. She went missing after being released and her remains were found in Malibu Canyon nearly a year later.
“I have for years wanted to reopen the old Malibu station where people could come to the city of Malibu, get booked and not have that distance to go from Lost Hills,” Baca told the Los Angeles Times.
He added that it would help people, “if we don’t just put cars in an impound area ridiculously far from where the individual is jailed.”
When told of Baca’s comments, Tyler said, “I really honestly believe the Sheriff… is clear, for the most part, [that] a Type 1 jail facility is extremely expensive [and not in the plans].
“That doesn’t mean we can’t book people,” Tyler continued. “It is possible to book people at a local community Sheriff’s station if they’re not going to be housed overnight; if they’re going to be cited and released.”
Baca did not return phone calls by The Malibu Times for comment on this article.