Part 2:
Jail centerpiece of Justice Center
By GARRETT NEESE, DMG Writer
POSTED: October 19, 2010
HOUGHTON - After 47 years, the Houghton County Jail is obsolete, overcrowded and potentially disastrous, officials have said.
A 110-bed, 32,000-square-foot jail is the centerpiece of a new justice center on the November ballot that would also include a new district court and sheriff's department facility.
The Justice Center would cost up to $15 million over a span of up to 30 years. The owner of a $100,000 house would pay $33.91 in the first year, with decreasing amounts in following years.
The current jail has a footprint of 7,940 square feet. In addition to 28 beds at the jail, the county has 26 at a work camp at the Houghton County Memorial Airport. Of 14 Upper Peninsula counties with a jail, Houghton has the lowest amount of jail beds per capita.
The county has been studying the jail problem since 1985, said Sheriff Brian McLean. Studies in 1999 and 2002 reached the same conclusion - replace the jail.
"It's been studied, studied and studied," he said. "All of the same issues have been gone over by each committee. By planning for it now, and taking charge, and doing something, we have control over what it costs."
The new facility would put jail and work camp beds under one roof, creating more efficiency, McLean said.
The jail is considered full at 80 percent capacity - "but we're always over capacity," McLean.
"A lot of times, we may have felons and misdemeanants mixed, because we have no place to put them," he said.
On Wednesday, the jail houses 34 inmates. One six-man cell was holding seven, with the odd man out lying on bedding on the floor.
One inmate looked at the bright side.
"I've seen nine in here," he said.
Another cell was empty because of a leaky toilet, taxing the space even more.
A table in the jail hallway opposite the holding tank is used for meetings between attorneys and their clients. Other inmates could easily listen in from a door on the adjoining wall, McLean said.
The tight space also leads to unsafe spaces with blind spots, such as the jail's laundry room.
"One thing you don't want are these blind alleys and corridors that go nowhere, and that's what we have," McLean said.
Officials say the new facility, which would allow for bringing defendants into district court via an elevator, would be safer than the current procedure, in which they are brought into court through the same entrance along with the public.
The larger jail will also allow space for more activities, such as cognitive behavior, jail ministry and General Equivalency Diploma programs, that might lower the recidivism rate.
A 2009 regional jail and facility re-use study for the Upper Peninsula projected that Houghton's average daily population would reach 62 by 2034.
The study assumes a jail with that average would need 25 percent more beds than that to account for peak populations, maintenance periods and the need to separate inmates for various reasons.
In the worst-case scenario, the report said, Upper Peninsula counties could see as much as a 50 percent increase in inmates on top of those projections. That number would result from state prison closings and early releases, leading to ex-felons charged with new crimes, parole violators on technical violations, or people charged with high court misdemeanors that would have been felon charges.
"Hopefully, this surge of new inmates will not arrive at U.P. jails, but county officials should keep this possibility in mind as they improve and expand their jails," the report stated.
McLean said the state has purged 9,000 prison inmates over the past five years; in that time, state jail populations have risen 30 percent.
"It has an impact on the local jails," he said. "Though crime may be decreasing, numbers in jail are increasing."
If the jail isn't replaced, McLean said, it could be subject to a constitutional challenge. He pointed to Genesee County, where inmates sued the county because of unsafe conditions.
District Court Judge Mark Wisti mentioned the possibility of a situation such as Schoolcraft Township's. Last month, the state Department of Corrections ordered the county to make $50,000 in repairs to bring the jail up to state standards.
Opponents of the proposal concede the need for a new facility. But they want a different location or format.
"This is not about whether or not we're going to build a Justice Center," said Houghton resident George Dewey. "It's whether or not we'll build this Justice Center."
One of the most frequently suggested ideas is using Camp Kitwen, a minimum-security 240-bed state work camp in Adams Township vacant since 2009.
A county analysis done last year by the Gettysburg, Pa.-based CRS, Inc. estimated it would cost $5.3 to $5.5 million to convert Camp Kitwen, which would include adding administrative space, creating separate space for female prisoners and dividing cells by security levels. Additional operating expenses, including the equivalent of seven-and-a-half full-time jobs, would cost the county more than $500,000 per year. Over 30 years, the study found, using Camp Kitwen would cost $7.3 million more than building the new jail.
The county would also only be able to lease, not buy, Camp Kitwen, the study found.
Houghton County Commissioner Anton Pintar said the justice center committee had extensively looked at other sites.
The committee was also hesitant to locate the jail separately from the sheriff's office and district court, which by state law must be located at the county seat, due to increased transportation costs and staffing needs.
The group also rejected plans to build on or around the existing jail, which they said would require closing Huron Street and demolishing the buildings. Only 5,940 square feet of the current jail could take on a second floor, the group said, while adding multiple floors would require additional staff.
Demolishing the courthouse parking deck to add parking would require closing South Street and buying additional property, the study found. Also, the parking deck only has half the size that would be required for the jail.
"In the end, the most cost-effective site was to locate the center on those empty lots acoss from the courthouse," Pintar said.
However, said Dewey, the county could relieve some of these costs by converting Kitwen into a regional jail.
"I think if you included the income from other inmates, we're looking at more than $200,000 a year in income," he said. "If you include that, it's a lot more competitive."
Dewey also disagreed with the notion that a wraparound jail would be unfeasible; he suggested a three-story addition behind the jail that would wrap around the existing jail with steel perimeter columns.
Opponents of locating the proposed Justice Center by the courthouse point to wording in the regional study that suggests Ontonagon and Keweenaw counties seek long-term partnering opportunities with Houghton in the event of a new jail. The Justice Center sourcebook notes that the facility is sited for future expansion and partnership options, though it also said the regional study "did not identify any current regional partnerships that are both feasible and cost-beneficial for Houghton County."
Dewey suggested along with the Camp Kitwen approach, the county could build a smaller facility for the district court and sheriff's department in Central Houghton, or build a smaller three-story structure on one city block. The smaller footprint would make the building less visible from downtown, and could allow the former Houghton High School block to be used as an alumni park, Dewey said.
"People don't want a Walmart-sized jail in Houghton," Dewey said.
Houghton County Commissioner Scott Ala, who cast the only vote against approving the ballot language for the proposal, said some inmates from other areas may wind up staying in the Houghton area.
"When those people are cut loose, they're done with their sentence waiting to bring them back to Gogebic (County), back to Ontonagon ... if they've got no place to go, they might have a place to go here. I've seen them, sitting outside the jail, thinking 'Where am I going to go?'" he said.
McLean said like now, the jail may take in a small numbers of prisoners from other counties. But the idea that it will become a regional jail is "completely untrue," McLean said.
"Just as we don't want to have an inmate at other counties, I believe they don't want to pay to have inmates at other counties ... they're just as strapped as we are," he said. "In small groups, out of necessity, they will, but we're not going to have a regional jail."
Some residents also questioned the lack of input into the decision making behind the center. Ala favors a process such as the one used by Leelanau County to construct a new government center. The county asked residents which site they preferred.
To comply with state law, the Leelanau County seat was relocated to the new site, which has a 72-bed jail and a 6,000-square-foot jail set up for expansion. In that setup, unlike the proposed Justice Center, both district and circuit court defendants would walk directly into the courtroom.
"We'll have to walk our inmates across Dodge Street, and it'll be our worst convicts," Ala said. "They don't even do that now."
Ala also touted the community space available in Leelanau County, including a meeting room with tele-conferencing.
McLean said Leelanau County's situation isn't a good comparison.
"They moved it to the most populated part of the township," he said. "We're already in the most populated part."
As for the process of determining the site, McLean said the commission had done a thorough job of examining the possibilities, and has been out in the community throughout the summer to discuss the plan.
"We're not railroading this through on anybody," he said. "We're out there, giving honest answers to people."
Ala said the city of Houghton had shown interest in using the space; if asked, Hancock and Michigan Technological University Public Safety might too, he said.
"We're going to have a cutting-edge facility for one police department," he said. "Maybe we should bring them together and it wouldn't cost more for a new courthouse and jail than it does for the Justice Center and we'd have even more efficiences."
McLean said he couldn't see making any large-scale improvements in the near future if the Justice Center proposal fails. Making a slight addition might be feasible, McLean said, but it would only be a temporary fix.
"Then what are we going to do in five to 10 years?" he said. "We're still going to remain landlocked. Will the needs remain the same? I think they will. Will the costs remain the same? I don't think they will. ... We've invested heavily in our area, our schools, our hospitals, our libraries, our colleges; we're just asking to keep up with everybody."
For more information on the Houghton County Justice Center proposal, go to houghtoncounty.net. For more information from residents opposing the plan, go to houghtoncountyjusticecenter.com. To read the regional jail and facility re-use study, go to upcap.org.
Garrett Neese can be reached at gneese@mininggazette.com.
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