The Proposed Southwest County Jail | Eastern North Carolina Now

    The Southwest County Jail, after the final piece of the puzzle fell into place when Chocowinity's government overruled their advisory board on permitting, 'was a go'. I say 'was a go' because the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), after witnessing the public's abject consternation over a slim majority of the county commissioners' ham-handed politics regarding the bold minority of Beaufort County Commissioners' strenuous objections, and then the public's rising plaintiff voice, pulled the financing.

    Now, the Southwest County Jail has suffered a powerful blow by not getting the USDA's financing, but was it a death blow? It is hard to speculate at this point. The 'Gang of Four' majority will probably not find any other suitable financing, and will be forced to allow the public's democratic input by referendum. I speculate this, but when it is the 'Gang of Four' making rational decisions; 'all bets all off', all speculation is mere conjecture.

    I bring this up today because my my visible self-admittedly-liberal reader, Gene Scarborough, contributed a post that brought his concerns to the fore. His concerns are concerns that every tax paying citizen should have to take part of the possible democratic process of referendum. I believe that the 'Gang of Four' commissioners will be forced to beg for the public's support in a referendum, rather than allowing the project to die because they obligated the county to 2 million dollars of consultant and architectural fees without financing in place, and with such a slender majority to do so.

    This scenario of allowing the public to participate in this democratic process of a referndum would be constitutionally (North Carolina) proper, and what the commissioners in minority have long begged for. Now that possibility is a better than even chance of coming into fruition, concerned citizens, like BCN's contributor Gene Scarborough, should be afforded an opportunity to participate in the question, and should take the opportunity to be knowledgeable on the subject.

    With my interest re-jogged by Gene's contribution, and being at the center of this ongoing conversation, I will articulate the two better positions, which are two, for the county's government at this time.

The Better Future for the County Jail

Two possible scenarios
    First and foremost, the current jail cannot be renovated without a tremendous amount of cost. One need only to remember what the county taxpayers endured when the recently installed "green" generator failed, and the antiquated breaker box of the electriacl system needed to be reworked along with other maintenance issues that the sheriff had allowed to remain unattended. The cost was heavy and the inconvenience was regrettable; however, the county learned something from the experience: It may be cheaper to house our prisoner's offsite in those county's that overbuilt their jail facilities.

    Commissioner Hood Richardson has made this argument quite convincingly for some time. Regardless of the full scale proposition of reducing drastically county expenditures to confine inmates, Beaufort County could maintain the current jail, which is fully accredited with North Carolina's DHHS, and should we have a future overcrowding problem, we could employ the facilities of our overbuilt neighboring counties. This is the first better position that the county should follow.

    Remarkably, even with all of the neighboring capacity of confinement, the 'Gang of Four' majority believes in putting the county's treasury into the 'build it and they will come' business, and they also wish to construct their proposed their "Industrial Incarceration Complex" where we encourage commerce and industry - the Chocowinity Industrial Park. At some point, I am in agreement with the 'Gang of Four'. We will need a new jail.

    What we will never need is an "Industrial Incarceration Complex" in our industrial park, which will take an additional 800,000.00 per year to move the prisoners to and from the Beaufort County Court House. When a jail is needed, Beaufort County can build directly behind the court house a much smaller jail than the infamous Southwest County Jail, leave the sheriff's office, 911, and EMS right where it is, and save plenty over the fiasco that may have almost occurred. This is the second better potion.

poll#49

poll#52