Well it looks like "jail planning" may have entered the Commishes vocabulary as well as their wish list for 2009 now that money is tight. They are now ready to spend near$10k to get a fix on the cost of building a new and improved 650 bed jail. All the usual suspects and threats abound with this latest effort. The ACLU, Idaho Sheriff's Standards and there may be more we are not yet aware of in the offing. ICRMP says they will continue to insure the county so that threat is off the table. Maybe they could set up a few buckets where the roof may be leaking as well.
The people we hired as leaders of the county are prepared to abandon $1.5 million in engineering studies for the 2,000 bed jail city and the 250 bed warehouse jail. Let's also not forget the false start on the Jerome property 825 bed jail project. Then there is the study done by Rocky Mountain Corrections a few years back that cost us all money. It will be interesting to see how they intend to market the concept of increased property taxes in this economy. The recent editorial the Commishes wrote in the local paper has not helped their cause on this at all. You can check that tome out on the IPT editor blog page.
Their first toss out to the taxpayers was $72.5 million for the Jerrome project. The 2,000 bed jail city was around $80 million for a good start on their second effort. The warehouse jail was pegged at $3.5 million before property and utility costs making this one around $10-15 million was a low-ball effort number three. Now we are getting the soft sell for $35-40 million for this latest attempt at a new jail to house 650 inmates.
The one question not getting answered is how much it will cost to staff, maintain and operate this new facility. If Canyon County is like anywhere USA the annual cost will be around $20 Million, The bond amortization and underwriting will be in the neighborhood of $4 million a year. So we have to come up with around $25 million a year to keep this jail project afloat.
The citizens committee that worked on the Hwy. 20/26 jail site was not given the whole truth when they made their selection for that site. The old saw about the ACLU, ICRMP insurance, Sheriff's Jail Standards etc. was bandied about by the Commishes and the Chief Civil Prosecutor and a short time line to get this jail project started or face some ill defined lawsuit threats. They used deceit to move the committee to their thinking on a jail site. In short, the process was nothing short of a sham per comments from several of the committee members.
If you want to see how good intentions can really go sour, type in Wapato Jail in your search engine and see the mess Portland, Oregon has created. Almost $60 million spent so far on a 550 bed jail and they don't have the money to operate it. I haven't checked lately but to date it has cost the sheriff his job, several commissioners their jobs and the public is really ticked off. Nobody has occupied it except a group of Boy Scouts because the don't have the cash to staff maintain and operate their new jail completed in 2004. Here is the link http://www.co.multnomah.or.us/dcj/oregon_live_wapato-prisonerofpolitics030608.pdf
The good news here is they have finally figured out they will need to ask permission to spend our money. This is a welcome change in attitude by our County Deciders. They ask and we get to decide ... finally!
Again, I am offering space to anyone who feels I am factually incorrect on any of this space to express their thoughts on this issue.
Between the commissioners ,the sheriff, and the prosecutors office, along with the aid of the Idaho Press Tribune, the public has been fed a steady diet of Jail BS. The whole time the alleged overcrowding has taken place they have had over one hundred beds empty in the work out center.
ReplyDeleteThe jail issue was born in deception, lies and deceit and endorsed by our local news paper.It has taken a recession to bring these people back to the taxpayers they were thumbing their noses at just a few months ago.
It is amazing that our news paper endorsed these people for re-election. One can only assume they agree with the incompetent and deceitful manor the jail issue has been handled.
Due to the lack of competent and professional reporting the public has been treated to jail crisis stories that have repeating the same lies over the past four years.
This is what happens when the news media gets involved in telling the public who to vote for instead of doing their job of reporting all the news accurately and professionally providing the public with factual information on which to base their own opinion.