CAO BACKS JAIL PLAN : BOARD TO CONSIDER TWIN TOWERS OPTION.

Byline: David Bloom Daily News Staff Writer

Los Angeles County should go ahead with a complex $74 million plan to rent out Los Angeles County jail facilities to state and federal agencies and use the revenues to open Twin Towers jail and fix Sybil Brand Institute for Women, the Chief Administrative Office recommended Wednesday.

``We looked at their numbers, and we're satisfied that they are good,'' said CAO David E. Janssen. ``We're confident the revenue sources will come. So we're recommending they move ahead with the plan as submitted.''

Supervisors welcomed the recommendation, which will be taken up during today's board meeting.

``I'm pleased,'' said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. ``The big picture is, in June we were nowhere and it's now early October, and we're poised to open them. There will be several thousand people behind bars who are not now behind bars and should be.''

Sheriff Sherman Block was unavailable for comment late Wednesday because he had not had a chance to review the report, a spokesman said.

Block and other criminal justice department leaders had emerged last month from intensive, monthlong meetings to propose the plan, which would add 1,818 badly needed new beds to the current 19,000 in the county jail system.

It also would finance probation programs overseeing another 1,300 criminals at a time, while leasing out 1,992 county-owned beds to state and federal agencies for their own prisoners.

But supervisors were concerned about the plan's complex fiscal structure, its reliance on still unsigned contracts and dependence on a 25 percent drop in the estimated cost of running Twin Towers, which was completed last fall but has remained vacant because of the county's poor finances.

Janssen's report, however, provides reassurance that the deal can be done, saying several funding sources appear solid, as does the likelihood of leases. As a result, the county should go ahead with the plan, which would begin taking effect in January and conclude most moves by late spring.

Under the plan, the county would close crumbling Sybil Brand Institute for repairs, shifting those prisoners to Twin Towers along with high-security inmates from the Peter J. Pitchess Detention Center East.