The Saratoga City Council will decide Wednesday, Nov. 4, whether to put a temporary freeze on any detention center or custodial processing facility opening in the city, according to the meeting agenda posted Friday.
The interim urgency ordinance, listed as a public hearing, would take effect immediately if adopted and last 45 days, or until Dec. 19, unless the council extends it. Because it is an urgency measure, it needs at least four of the five council members to vote yes, the staff report says.
What the freeze would cover
While it is in force, the city would not accept, process, approve or issue any application, permit, certificate of occupancy, business license or similar approval for what the ordinance calls a "covered use," on private or public property, to the extent the law allows.
That term reaches both places that hold people and places that only process them. A detention facility is defined as any property used to confine or hold one or more people under government authority, for any length of time, and the definition lists jails, prisons, civil or immigration detention centers and juvenile detention.
A custodial processing facility is any site used mainly to book, fingerprint, screen, interview, transfer or release people in custody, even if no one stays overnight and even if it is described as an office, field office or intake center. The draft says such a use cannot be relabeled as an administrative office or other broader category to get around the freeze.
Routine police work, medical and residential care, ordinary supervision at schools and child care, offices or hearing rooms with no custodial component, and transportation that simply passes through town are excluded.
Why staff is bringing it now
The city's code does not define or expressly permit these uses, and Community Development staff say that gap creates a risk that a proposal could be filed under a broader category before the city finishes reviewing the issue. The staff report does not mention any application or proposal in Saratoga.
The report points to federal activity in the region. It says U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has called California detention centers crucial to its West Coast network and has recently acquired facilities at Otay Mesa and California City.
In June, the state and Santa Clara County sued over a proposed federal detention and processing site on about 25 acres near Gilroy, and a federal judge halted further construction in September while the case continues. The ordinance's findings say that site could hold up to 150 detainees.