10/07/16   Cleveland County Seeking Temporary Relief For County Jail

At the Cleveland County Quorum Court meeting this past Monday night, Cleveland County Sheriff Jack Rogers told Judge Gary Spears and the JP's he was going to contact the state to see if the county jail could remain open on a temporary basis if the county held fewer prisoners until a long term solution could be determined.

An inspection by the Criminal Detention Facilities Review Committee in March found that the jail did not have enough jailers to meet state standards.

In addition to the jail matter, the JP's also discussed what Judge Gary Spears called an “outrageous” amount billed to the county for expenses associated with the recent jail study.

To address all the findings in the report, Cleveland County is seeking a temporary one cent sales tax to pay for building a new county jail and one and a half cent permanent sales tax to maintain, operate and help pay for construction of the jail.

Sheriff Rogers has been on the road, conducting public meetings at various locations in the county giving residents an opportunity to ask questions about the proposed new jail. Rogers told us, so far response has been good.

The next public meeting is this Monday evening at 6:30 at the New Edinburg Community Center. We asked Sheriff Rogers what he will do if the tax issue isn't passed on November 8.

We asked Rogers if he was optimistic about winning the approval of the voters and building a new jail.