Three years ago, the Board of Supervisors made the landmark decision to shut down San Francisco’s juvenile hall by the end of 2021, becoming the first major city in the nation to take such a step. Yet the Youth Guidance Center remains open—and it could take another three years or more to close.

The decision in 2019 came in the wake of a Chronicle report that showed a dramatic drop in serious youth crime that had left the state’s juvenile halls almost vacant. Supervisors pledged to stop incarcerating kids and instead create home-like rehabilitative centers, including a secure site for youth who pose a public safety risk.

While no clear timeline or new deadline has been set, officials acknowledged this week that juvenile hall may remain open for many more years, highlighting how difficult criminal justice reform can be even amid strong political support. The city is struggling to find an acceptable site for a smaller “non-institutional” building that would be secure enough to meet state regulations for youth deemed dangerous.

“If I had to give a realistic estimate (for closure), it would be three years,” said Supervisor Hillary Ronen, co-sponsor of the legislation to shutter juvenile hall.

Ronen acknowledged that the original goal was overly ambitious.

“Originally, we thought we could just find a big house and fix it up,” she said. “But that was wishful thinking. There is not an existing building that meets the state regulations for a secure building.”

Ronen said the realistic conclusion is that a new building will need to be constructed to meet state regulations. Those rules include a requirement that the building have hallways that are at least 8 feet wide, which is exceedingly rare.

San Francisco’s juvenile hall had just 11 occupants on Thursday. An average of 14 juveniles per day were kept in custody in San Francisco in 2021 — at an annual cost of about $1.1 million each— inside a facility built to hold as many as 150 people.

Juvenile Probation Chief Katy Weinstein Miller said at a special meeting of the supervisors’ Youth, Young Adults and Families Committee on Thursday that her department is seeking $500,000 in the next city budget for an architect or designer to work with the community on a vision for a new building. No new site has yet been identified.

According to a report from the juvenile hall closure task force last year, possible sites included cottages on the Edgewood Center for Children and Families campus in the Sunset District, where other spaces are used for health mental crisis care and other treatment. Other options include a former Academy of Arts residential building or the purchase of an industrial warehouse converted into a therapeutic setting. Miller said she also believes the current juvenile hall site should be considered, though she acknowledged that site would be controversial.

Ronen insisted that supervisors remain committed to closing juvenile hall.

“Our urgency and our goal have not changed,” she said Friday. “What’s changed is how we practically see ourselves getting to that goal.”

Speakers from a collection of city departments — including the police, district attorney, public defender, juvenile probation and public health — spoke at Thursday’s hearing and agreed that the city should continue to expand on its current strategy of steering juvenile offenders away from prison-like settings and toward supportive programs.

Already, youth who are arrested are typically diverted from juvenile hall and into programs they attend while living at home or in a group home.

Ronen and Supervisor Shamann Walton voted Thursday to continue the discussion. Supervisors Myrna Melgar and Ahsha Safaí were absent.

Advocates of the juvenile hall shutdown, including a group of youth activists, said the city needs to move more quickly, and shouldn’t focus so much energy on a new building — which they labeled “just a jail by another name.” Instead, they said, the city should aim to end incarceration by providing sufficient services to keep youth from needing to be held in a secure facility.

The hearing, and the renewed attention on closing juvenile hall, comes as concern about crime in San Francisco runs high, even as data shows a complex picture, and a variety of polls show that most San Franciscans support the recall of District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who they believe has been too lenient.

Supporters of the 2019 decision to close juvenile hall cited the trauma inflicted on young offenders in a setting where they sleep in locked cells on thin upholstered mats set atop concrete platforms. City officials deemed the detention morally unacceptable and ineffective at rehabilitating young people. They also decried the exorbitant cost.

Walton said it was important to acknowledge the progress the city has made in reforming juvenile justice.

“We are in a much better space now than we were then,” he said.

Plans to shutter juvenile hall have also been slowed by COVID as well as the state’s decision to close California youth prisons, which leaves nowhere to send youth offenders convicted of serious crimes.

In the next year, Ronen said, she envisions having a design informed by community feedback as well as a site selected. She also hopes the city will have figured out how to pay for construction.

Walton said the next steps also include directing the creation of support programs for children and families identified in the task force report.

That would include the creation of one or more wellness advocate positions to help youth and families ensure they’re getting the services they need and a commitment by all city agencies that work with troubled youth to collaborate with the Juvenile Probation Department, and with youth advocates , to change the way juvenile hall is operated.

“At the end of the day, there are some issues we are not fully in control of,” Walton told The Chronicle, citing the need for court approval. “But we are not backsliding.”

Michael Cabanatuan (he/him) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan

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LODI (CBS13) – A 91-year-old Lodi woman who was locked in her own home during the fire is now safe.

The front of the house has a board over one of the windows after a group of people helped smash it to get the woman out on Tuesday.

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Repairman Mike Becerra says he was at work when he noticed the fire.

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“So I went over and looked – I heard a lady speak very softly,” he said. “I quickly understood what happened. I asked her, “Can you go out of the house?” She said ‘no I can’t.’ “

With the help of the neighbors, Mike broke the window and put out the fire with a garden hose. You got the woman out just in time.

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Mike says the woman has dementia and is locked in the residence for her safety.

The post Lodi Senior Locked Inside Burning House Rescued By Handyman, Neighbors – CBS Sacramento appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

A solid bond has been established between the San Francisco 49ers and number 3 Alabama quarterback Mac Jones in the 2021 NFL Draft. The drafting world has finally resigned itself to the idea that Jones, as an athlete, fails the eye test, but he’s doing enough to warrant a possible move up to the top 10 on the draft.

Meanwhile, the question has arisen whether there is a legitimate case that the 49ers intend to vote for Jones at number 3. Or is the smoke before drafting with Jones a little too useful to keep competing teams off the smell of their true intentions?

What we do know is that the 49ers gave the Miami Dolphins a sizable collection of picks – the number 12 in this draft, a first and third round in 2022, and another first round in 2023 – to upgrade nine spots from No. # 12 through # 3. The nature of that move calls out for quarterback, so now it comes down to which prospect suits the Niners best.

The Jacksonville Jaguars appear to be linked to number 1 in Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence, and the New York Jets made their intentions clear to BYU’s Zach Wilson by trading Sam Darnold for the Carolina Panthers last week.

San Francisco now has the first dibs for the best quarterback available, and that choice is Jones, Justin Fields, Ohio, or Trey Lance, North Dakota.

On top alone, Fields and Lance seem to be in a different stratosphere as athletes and pure throwers, but Jones enters the design with a better reputation for processing what he sees on the field and delivering the ball with precision . He used these skills to host a monster season for coach Nick Saban and led the Crimson Tide to a national title.

Jones was a Heisman Trophy finalist and set the NCAA’s record for one season (77.4), indicating how automatically he makes the right decisions. As a former four-star recruit, Jones completed 311 of 402 passes for 4,500 yards with 45 touchdowns and four interceptions.

Here’s a good, in-depth look at how Jones is making progress on Alabama’s high octane crime:

Few prospects are dragged out in the run-up to the draft like Fields, who is an exceptional quarterback with special arm talent when he’s at his best. Questions about its consistency are fair, but the real debate revolves around Fields’ ability to make progress beyond his first reading. Scouting reports say he is holding the ball for too long.

Much of this review feels fabricated and deliberate, as it often does this time of year, especially with the perspective that Fields is likely to be performing what he was asked to do in the Buckeyes crime. Anyway, it seems at least quite a number of NFL talent assessors share these concerns about Fields, but where do the 49ers stand on him?

That part is unclear as General Manager John Lynch did not tilt his hand. When it came down to it and Lynch had the choice of testing Fields or Jones on their respective pro days, Lynch picked Jones. That, too, could mean something or nothing.

And the final vantage point for the 49ers preference is “The Kyle Shanahan Effect”. What is he looking for in a quarterback? How important might Jones’ processing skills be to him, and how does this fit with the belief that dual-threat skills add a valuable new dimension to his offense?

Shanahan has made his offensive work with almost any type of quarterback, as Brad Berreman points out for FanSided, so his “type” isn’t set in stone. However, his liveliest quarterback during his time as Coordinator was Robert Griffin III in Washington, and he has another shot to add that momentum to the 49ers offensive with Fields or Lance.

Chances are, the 49ers’ decision will be made by either Fields or Jones just because they have far fewer questions about their game. Fields is arguably a better mix of advantage and security, but Jones is probably the guy if the 49ers want a player who can get used to the NFL and start right away.

If Jones is really special in the mental side of the game, that affects the discussion up too. Tom Brady became the greatest quarterback of all time with below par athleticism but elite workmanship, instinct, accuracy, and competitiveness.

Jones may have a skill similar to a long, productive career, but it would seem like an unnecessary gamble for a player barely in the first round to move into 3rd place to pick. Only the 49ers can know for sure where to lean – and Jones is undoubtedly at the top of their board – but the fact that it’s cast as a virtual automatic seems a little * too * easy and convenient.

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