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Jails Or Buses? Question For A Washington County

March 25th, 2009
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wa-franklin-county-mapWhich is more important to a community — buses for passengers or jail cells for prisoners? It’s an either/or question that Franklin County WA Commissioner Brad Peck has posed, and he thinks the answer is clear.  Story from the Pasco News Tribune.

“As much as we love public transit, and as much as we realize people benefit from it, it is a privilege,” Peck said. A county’s obligation to provide jail space to house a community’s criminals, on the other hand, is an essential responsibility mandated by the state constitution, he said.

Peck raised the question of priorities because he says tax revenue Ben Franklin Transit gets could be diverted to pay to renovate and expand the county jail.   The county has hired architects to design a $25 million project that would convert the existing jail back to a 112-bed maximum-security area and add a new minimum- and medium-security area with 225 beds. Administrative and court space would be added to the top floor …

County Administrator Fred Bowen has estimated that a 0.2 percent increase in the sales tax would generate enough revenue to pay for a $25 million construction project, and another 0.1 percent increase would generate enough revenue to pay for the increased expense of operating the expanded jail.  Whether to ask voters to approve the 0.3 percent increase is a decision the county commission is going to have to make, Bowen said.  Peck began eyeing the transit system’s 0.6 percent sales tax revenue as a possible funding source in recent weeks as county and city officials mulled the jail situation.

vericatrajkova Economic Issues, Prison and Jail Construction, WA Franklin County, Washington

Franklin County WA Plans New Jail, Court

February 11th, 2009
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wa-franklin-county-mapFranklin County WA and the City of Pasco plan to study if the most affordable way to build a new county jail would be to put a municipal court on top of it, according to the Tri-City Herald.

Franklin County needs a new jail because it’s running out of room in the existing one. Built 25 years ago to hold about 102 prisoners, its daily population averaged 196 prisoners last year.  County officials anticipate they need to build a new 250-bed jail and renovate the existing one to accommodate their needs for the next 20 years. But the county hasn’t found a clear path for paying the $20 million price tag to build it — not to mention the cost of operating the new facility — especially considering that the public twice voted down a 0.2 percent sales tax increase for criminal justice in 2005.

The city, meanwhile, needs to find a place for its municipal court and prosecutors because its lease of space at the county courthouse expires in three years and the county is eyeing the space for expanding its own departments … After discussing the two problems for about two hours, the council and commission agreed to have their staffs look into the cost of having local architects draw up conceptual designs for building a jail with administrative or court space.

vericatrajkova County-City Issues, Overcrowding, Prison and Jail Construction, WA Franklin County, Washington

Regional Jail Plan Blooms

November 24th, 2008
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The coalition of counties wanting to build a new regional jail in Central Washington has grown to seven and wants money for a detailed study of the idea.

Franklin County has now joined Douglas, Chelan, Okanogan, Grant, Kittitas and Adams in talking about jointly building a facility to house inmates.  Officials from the counties met last Thursday in Yakima during the Washington State Association of Counties meeting. Officials from several Western Washington counties, including Whatcom, Skagit and Snohomish, also attended the meeting and expressed interest in building regional jails in their own areas, said Douglas County Commissioner Ken Stanton.

Under current state law, jails can only be owned and operated by a city or county. However, the coalition of Eastern Washington counties will present a bill in the upcoming legislative session to change the law and allow private entities to run jails, Stanton said. He said the seven counties are interested in paying for construction of the jail and then paying a private operator to run it. The state granted a similar law change several years ago to allow Martin Hall, a juvenile detention facility near Spokane in which Douglas County youth are housed, to be built by nine counties and run by a private entity. RiverCom, the 911 emergency call center in Wenatchee, is also operated by a private entity and funded by multiple government agencies. Sen. Linda Evans Parlette, R-Wenatchee, has agreed to sponsor the bill in the Senate, and Rep. Mike Armstrong, R-Wenatchee, will lead the effort in the House, Stanton said.

Douglas County raised the idea of building the regional jail earlier this year after determining that it would be too costly to build one on their own. The commissioners have said they don’t believe the 380-bed jail in Wenatchee will be big enough for Chelan and Douglas counties and all the cities in those counties in the future, and they don’t want to invest in expanding the aging facility.  The Association of Counties has asked for $250,000 from Gov. Chris Gregoire’s capital budget to do a feasibility study on building the regional jail, Stanton said. “The first major step is to see if it’s viable,” he said. “We need to find out how much it will cost overall and how much it will cost each of the counties.”   The study will not look at a possible location for the facility. That decision would be made after the study is done, Stanton said.

vericatrajkova Regional Jails, WA Adams County, WA Chelan County, WA Clark County, WA Douglas County, WA Franklin County, WA Grant County, WA Kittitas County, WA Okanogan County