Committee sees growing jail use

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Red Willow County Commission Chairman Earl McNutt knows that a new city-county public safety center, sheriff's office and jail would reduce or eliminate the county's transportation of prisoners and its rental of jail space in other counties.

McNutt told fellow members of the city-county jail study committee at a meeting Wednesday that a new jail would also meet the needs of an increasing jail population. "I don't see that ever going away," he said.

McCook Fire Chief Marc Harpham, a city representative on the committee, envisions a facility more energy-efficient than the city's existing public safety center. Harpham listed aging heating and cooling systems and leaky windows among the drawbacks of the existing facility. Surely, less money would be spent on maintenance and utilities in a new building, Harpham said.

Harpham said that a remodeling project that added the current fire department apparatus bay in 1984, was a "five-year plan" that said that the fire department would be in a new facility after that.

Harpham said, too, that the fire department is outgrowing its existing space. "The current facility has been remodeled time and time again," he said. "Our space is not necessarily too small; however, there is only so much that we can do with what we have."

At a previous meeting of the two entities, Harpham was asked to make "dry runs" from a proposed located on West Q to various locations in McCook. These are his findings for that West Q location:

Response time from:
Current SiteWest Q

Reservation

300 Park Ave.

3 min.5 min.

Valmont

South Highway 83

2 1/2 min.5 min.

Wal-Mart

West Highway 6-34

2 min.3 1/2 min.

Willow Ridge

East 11th and H

4 min.5 1/2 min.

Harpham said that these dry runs were made at various times during the week, about 9 p.m. each time. Therefore, they do not consider traffic congestion around schools or in downtown McCook.

Harpham said that response times from the seemingly-preferred location of the former West Ward Elementary school would not be much different than response times from the current location. However, he said, for emergencies that would require emergency vehicles to go west, east or north of West Ward, response times may improve because the vehicles will not have to cross B Street.

McNutt and Harpham had obviously finished the homework assigned during the committee's last meeting, June 6: to determine the benefits of a new co-joined and co-operated county sheriff's office and jail and city police department and fire department.

McCook Police Chief Ike Brown said that the existing public safety center could theoretically be renovated into a jail -- at a cost of half a million dollars.

Brown asked: Could the existing building be renovated? "Yes," he said. Could it include police and fire? "No." So it would be necessary, then, to relocate the police and fire departments, Brown said.

McNutt likes the idea of keeping money in McCook and in Red Willow County, rather than spending it for the rental of bed space in other counties' jails.

He said it is also possible that the new facility would create new jobs, as 24-hour supervision of prisoners would be required, a service that is not needed with the county's existing system of housing prisoners either in the city's 96-hour holding cells (if appropriate) or by transporting them to Hitchcock, Frontier, Decatur or Dawson counties.

Brown said, however, "Tax-funded jobs are not economic development."

Brown said that a new facility most likely would not impact the number of personnel needed by the police and/or fire departments. "Public safety is service," he said. "That's what we provide is service."

McNutt said that the possibility still exists that state, federal and other county jurisdictions may rent bed space if it were available in a new McCook-Red Willow County facility. "There's an overpopulated prison system across the state," McNutt said.

Dan Smith, senior vice president of D.A. Davidson & Co., the Omaha bonding firm hired by the county to help promote the jail issue before the Nov. 7 election said, "It's almost a 'Field of Dreams' situation -- 'if you build it, they will come.'"

Brown pointed out, however, that the coordinators of the county's jail study found that state and federal law enforcement and immigration officials could make no commitment to rent bed space in McCook. "And area jails are not interested because they want to keep their own facilities open," Brown said.

Brown said that Hitchcock and Frontier county jails are "grandfathered in" under existing jail standards. And, he said, there is "nothing in the offing" in jail standards changes that would close those jails, "that would put them out of business."

As long as they stay open and pass life-safety inspections, Brown said, those existing jails are "fine."

The current cost of transporting prisoners and renting bed space would be "within a whisker" of the estimated operating costs of a new jail, Smith said.

According to the Phase II jail study, the 2004-2005 county budget expenditures for boarding prisoners at other facilities, plus additional expenditures for transportation and related costs, was $313,430 (figures that are found in the sheriff's jail budget). This figure does not include a prorated share of personnel, which is included in the sheriff's budget; and health care (approximately $1,041 per month per employee), which is in the county's general budget.

The new jail's operating budget is estimated at $335,000 annually, at a 60 percent occupancy rate of 18 (of a 30-bed jail).

McNutt admits that a new jail may not be cheaper than the existing system of transporting prisoners, yet he anticipates that other jurisdictions will want to rent space, and he weighs in the creation of new jobs for the community and the county. McNutt feels the new public safety center and jail would maintain and/or enhance McCook's status as a regional hub of Southwest Nebraska.


McNutt told city representatives Kyle Potthoff, Brown and Harpham that the county will pay an architectural firm's charge for pre-election work and for a preliminary set of drawings from a sinking fund created several years ago to study and/or build a new jail.

The architectural firm's fees for final blueprints -- if the new facility is approved in November -- would be shared by the city and county.

Smith said that final resolutions, including language for the ballot, will be ready for discussion and approval by the city council and the county commissioners at their Aug. 21 meetings. The resolutions must be in the county clerk's office by Sept. 1 for inclusion on the Nov. 7 ballot.


The joint city-county jail committee will meet again Wednesday, July 12, at noon, in the large meeting room of the County Kitchen in McCook.

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