North County could be getting a new sheriff’s station

An 18-acre tract of land along two busy North County highways could one day be home to a sheriff’s station — a longtime item on the county’s wish list that’s suddenly getting a lot more attention from the audience.

A few months ago, the site — on the southwest corner of Interstate 15 and State Road 76, in a valley just north of the iconic Lilac Road Bridge — sprouted a sign: Future site of the regional public security center.

The idea would be to create a new sheriff’s command area spanning 166 square miles, to serve the unincorporated areas of Vista, San Marcos and Escondido, as well as the communities of Pala, Pauma Valley and Palomar Mountain.

The sheriff’s department purchased the land two years ago, repurposing it from Caltrans for about $3.2 million. In asking the county to purchase the land, the department said its proximity to the highway made it an “ideal location for public safety facilities, including a sheriff’s station to meet the needs of a growing population.” north of SR-76. It would also include a helicopter pad and staging site for county firefighters.

The project is estimated at $95 million. The funding — formal discussions about how to pay for it aren’t even on the table for another two years — would likely come from “potential future revenue sources,” the sheriff’s department said. It is possible that this means obligations.

It’s not the only new building on the department’s facilities wish list, but it’s near the top, along with the Ramona Substation replacement. Also at the top of the list: a new or renovated prison in Vista, at a cost of more than $300 million.

As the Sheriff’s Department grapples with infrastructure needs, wants and prices, it has launched a listening tour around San Diego to gauge the public’s appetite for projects and potential funding. It hosts five forums – two completed, three more to go – before the end of the month.

“I would like to know what people really think and how much they are willing to invest in improving our facilities,” Sheriff Kelly Martinez told the Union-Tribune at the first forum held last week in Escondido.

“I believe we have a lot of capacity to make substantial improvements to the way people are incarcerated in this county,” she said. “But I would like to hear directly from our community what they think.”

The forums are in each of the Board of Supervisors’ five districts, although none of those five are in cities or communities where the sheriff’s department is the primary law enforcement agency. About 10 people showed up to the Escondido event. There is also an online feedback form that people can fill out to share their thoughts on the topic.

The sheriff said the forums are “an exploration of what’s available out there, where the support will be.”

“My goal is not to go to voters and ask them for money,” she added. “I wish we could fund it through a government resource.”

The proposal along the highway

The need for a new station in Far North County was first discussed nearly two decades ago, as part of a 2005 sheriff’s facilities master plan. The idea was also supported in a subsequent planning study in 2020.

The patrol area would be carved out of areas currently served by the Vista and San Marcos sheriff’s stations and the Fallbrook and Valley Center substations. These stations would not disappear.

The department says the need for a new station is there, with more than 10,000 residential units planned in five major subdivisions north of State Route 76.

The proposed station would initially serve about 30,000 residents in the area, with growth of up to 100,000 residents, the department said, noting that these areas are currently underserved communities.

Additionally, according to the department, the five tribal reservations in this area attract up to 50,000 guests per day to their casinos and other attractions.

As things currently stand, according to the ministry, the geographical areas covered by two to three deputies per team are “untenable in the long term”.

The department said the current time from dispatch to arrival on scene averages 12.8 minutes in unincorporated areas and 22 minutes in rural areas. The response times, the ministry said, constitute “an unacceptable response rate.”

Conceptual site plan for the proposed new sheriff’s station at Interstate 15 and State Route 76.

(The Miller Hull Partnership)

The 18-acre, pizza-slice-shaped plot of land couldn’t come close to North County’s major inland roads — it’s bordered to the east by I-15, to the north by SR-76 and to the west via old route 395.

There are several other wishes on the department’s wish list, including a new station in Ramona. This project is actually closer to fruition than the still-conceptual sites for I-15 and SR-76.

The Ramona substation currently occupies approximately 10,000 square feet. But the department needs, according to a 2019 study, about 18,000 feet.

The current building is around 50 years old and its infrastructure is aging. It last underwent a serious overhaul almost two decades ago.

Later this month, the Sheriff’s Department will ask the Board of Supervisors for permission to begin planning to demolish the building and award a contract to a design and construction firm, a department official said.

A rendering of a new Ramona Sheriff’s Department substation.

(The Miller Hull Partnership)

The county is on track to set aside $5 million in the next fiscal year, beginning in July, to fund this first phase of a new Ramona station. The following year, they want to move forward with physical construction, which sheriff’s officials estimate will cost an additional $34.5 million.

Vista prison, a “priority”

Last summer, Martinez outlined a 10-year plan to replace or renovate jails in the county’s seven-facility system.

Topping the list is a new jail in Vista, which Martinez said last week was “his biggest priority” among needed detention center repairs and replacements. For several years, the department has raised alarms about the crumbling Vista Detention Center, located next to the Vista Courthouse, a prison that the department says was decades in its most prosperous life .

An inmate cell at the Vista Detention Center.

(UT file)

At a community forum last week, a volunteer chaplain at Vista Prison said its library of non-secular materials for inmates was mostly in the basement, where water ran down the walls . There is no site dedicated to faith-based services in the prison.

The sheriff wants to add space for programming resources to help a jail population that has changed over the past decade. A change in state law means prisons now house people convicted of more serious crimes and keep them much longer. Martinez also wants to add better medical facilities to the Vista jail, including space for evaluations done during booking.

The sheriff said he probably has “about seven years left to live in Vista Jail.” She acknowledged that renovation or reconstruction would be “extremely expensive”. One estimate puts it at $314 million. She said it could be much more.

It’s unclear whether replacement is the way forward for Vista Prison. The department hired an external consultant to come up with options.

“They are looking at where Vista Prison can go, whether it needs to be a completely new facility or whether we can rebuild the existing facility, what that would look like and what the timeline would be for that,” Martinez said. The report should reach him around June.