07/14/16   Bringing The Jail In Compliance Topped Discussion At Cleveland County Quorum Court

At it's meeting last week, the Cleveland County Quorum Court JP's heard a report from JP Bruce Brown regarding work the jail committee has done thus far.

The Cleveland County jail has been found in non-compliance with state regulations so a committee was appointed by Judge Gary Spears to bring recommendations to the full court on action the county may take in bringing the jail into compliance.

The committee says the county has three options.  Farm out the prisoners to other counties was one suggestion but the committee noted they felt that proposition would be costly for the county and would take money out of the county. The second suggestion was a regional jail. The committee didn't think that option was a good one either. The third option was to build a new jail. The committee feels that is the best option.

Judge Spears introduced James Langford and Mike Kelly with SouthBuild construction. They told the court they could build a plan for any size jail. The cost of the plan would be $16,000.00 plus $2,500.00 for expenses for a total of $18,500.00.

Judge Spears told the court members it will cost the county a two and half cent sales tax to build and maintain a new jail, one cent to build and a one and a half cent to maintain. He said a penny of the tax would sunset in 15 to 30 years but the remainder of the tax would remain as long as there's a jail to maintain. Following a lengthy discussion, JP Brown made a motion to authorize South build to do a study for a 50 to 80 bed jail. The motion passed 8 to 1 with JP Triplett voting against.