Gage County eying possible jail bond issue

BEATRICE – Gage County will seek input from area residents on the prospect of a new county detention center, with open house events scheduled at Beatrice High School in early March.

Officials are considering whether to put a bond issue before voters in November. Back in 2009, Gage County residents soundly rejected a jail and law enforcement bond issue…..but the problems remain…..a jail built in the 1970s lacking space, requiring some inmates to be held elsewhere.

Davis Design architect Christian Petrick...said no decisions have been made on design, size of facility or site location. Monthly sessions starting last September with a Gage County jail committee, included review of a needs assessment.

"In 2009, Gage County had a bond vote, if everyone remembers, that sought $11.4 million in funding for a jail replacement facility. That bond failed. This demonstrates, I think, that the need is not new...it's not going away...yet the cost continues to grow and grows every year."

March 4th and March 6th, public town hall meetings will be held at the Beatrice High School Hevelone Center, to obtain public input.

The current house Gage County used for a sheriff’s quarters dates back to 1917…and the property was expanded in 1977 to include detention space.

"The facility is rated by state standards to house 30 beds. The average daily population last year was 35....and that total building is 10,800 square feet."

Gage County frequently holds some prisoners in the Washington County, Kansas jail and some prisoners at a jail in Blair, Nebraska. The limitations of jail size, Petrick says, leads to potentially unsafe conditions for inmates and staff. There are additional costs to the county for those outside holds. Petrick says potential sites for a new jail have been discussed.

"Our ideal site would be about five to seven acres, if we proceed with a building in that 50 to 55 thousand square foot range. We did discuss reusing the existing jail site. That site, including the storage facility north of the alley, is less than one and a half acres."

Expanding at the current jail property would require a multi-story facility and may present operational deficiencies…plus no ability to add on, if needed.

Gage County Supervisor Emily Haxby, chairing Wednesday’s Supervisors meeting, said the county wants to make sure the public is fully informed on the issue.

"We don't really have a plan yet. We want to know what the public wants....so we're going to show them the study we did....whether we use the 20 or the 30 year chart on using how many beds...is it with the Covid dip, or without the Covid dip...and then allow the survey at the end for the public once they have the information, to let us know what they think is appropriate. Once we have that, we can work through a cost analysis."

Petrick says finding a cost that is tolerable to the bond-voting public is important to establishing the size of a project. Gage County law enforcement committee chairman Gary Lytle says the county’s current facility carries of risk of becoming non-operational by state standards.

"Now, instead of 10 to 15 people being sent out of county....you're looking at everybody going out of county. And, at that point you would have to at least have a holding facility...and so, that's an uncontrollable at some point we might have to consider. And definitely in our cost analysis, we're going to have to look at those options."

Haxby says the public information will include video walk-throughs of the current detention center, to show what the county is facing.

Petrick says doing nothing does not rid the county of jail maintenance and repairs, nor the cost of housing inmates elsewhere.