If County Jail has become Santa Barbara’s de facto mental institution — as pretty much everyone agrees it has — Sheriff Bill Brown found himself on the hot seat Tuesday as the county supervisors relentlessly demanded to know what kind of mental institution he planned to operate when he builds a new jail in North County.
Mostly, the supervisors wanted to know how much the mental-health programs there were going to cost, but they were also curious how many mentally ill inmates get locked up and how often they come back as repeat offenders. Brown and Commander Julie McCammon scrambled to come up with answers, but to the questions most on the supervisors’ minds, the reply was mostly, “It depends.” As for the data demanded, Brown pointed out that the jail’s current system is antiquated and that the supervisors had nixed his funding request this year for a more modern info-dredging system.
For his efforts, Brown got little purchase from the supervisors, who’ve grown increasingly impatient with the sheriff and his North County jail complex, which will cost millions of general fund dollars a year to operate. “For $40 million, I don’t think I can rely on ‘If you build it, they will come,’” said Supervisor Peter Adam, adding, “which is what I’m hearing you say.”