Nine picked for jail task force

McCOOK, Nebraska -- Red Willow County, Nebraska, commissioners Monday morning approved a list of nine county residents to help the Omaha firm selected as a jail study consultant investigate the county's options for transporting and housing its prisoners.

Members of the new task force are Nancy Willers, Jim Coady, Mitch Lyster, Jim Ladd, James Arp, Michelle O'Dea and Pam Morello of McCook and Donnie Sughroue Jr. of Bartley.

Commission chairman Earl McNutt said the function of the task force will be more to provide information for representatives of Prochaska & Associates of Omaha, rather than in-depth study and research, as the mission was for a jail task force in 2004.

Task force meetings will be open to the public and most generally advertised as legal county meetings because the likelihood of having at least two of the three commissioners present is "pretty high," McNutt said.

Task force members and Prochaska representatives will study five options for Red Willow County:

* Use the City of McCook's 96-hour holding cells and continue to transport long-term prisoners to neighboring county jails.

* Expand the city's 96-hour cells into a full-operation jail. Commissioners and Red Willow County Sheriff Gene Mahon hope to meet the end of April or the first of May with a Nebraska fire marshal about a fire marshal's inspection of the facility in February.

* Update the county's jail closed in 1983.

* Build new construction onto the north side of the courthouse.

* Build new construction elsewhere.