Jail expansion to move forward

Plans to expand the Riverside County Jail in Indio will soon go out to bid.

State officials last week approved the long-planned expansion, which is expected to cost nearly $300 million, according to a report in The Press-Enterprise.

County officials have blamed delays in building the East County Detention Center partly on difficulty getting the state fire marshal to approve blueprints of the facility, but that approval was obtained recently.

A bid could be approved in two to three months and construction could start as early as this summer, the report stated.