Cities skeptical of county's new jail plans

If King County leaders want to keep cities from building their own jails, they will have to act quickly and prove that they're serious about providing a regional jail system that will house not just felons, but misdemeanor inmates, too.

"We need long-term certainty," Seattle's deputy mayor, Tim Ceis, told a King County Council committee Monday.

The hearing was to consider an ordinance directing King County Executive Ron Sims to renew negotiations with the cities on a contract for jail services, extending the contract to 2014 and providing for a long-term plan to address future inmate populations. The ordinance will go before the full council Monday.

Although many county leaders now would clearly like to continue providing jail services for the cities' misdemeanor offenders, and collect the revenue that goes with that, many city leaders hesitate to trust the county over the long haul, and some have simply put in too much work into alternative plans to change course at this point.

And for some there's a third issue -- local control.

"Our cities don't want to be faced with having to leave a jail again," said Penny Bartley, manager for Renton's jail.

Historically, cities have paid the county to hold their misdemeanor offenders, people arrested in crimes such as theft, drunken driving or domestic violence.

But until recently, the county's Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention has said that by 2012, the county lockups would no longer have room for these lower-level inmates.

Rather, projections of inmate population growth suggested the county would have its hands full just housing felons, people accused of crimes such as murder or rape.

But recently, county officials have said new projections show that they will have room for misdemeanor offenders even after the 2012 deadline, though a new jail will need to be built.

Most cities have joined either a North King County group or South King County group and have begun planning to build their own jails for misdemeanor offenders, based upon the county's previous intent to quit holding these inmates.

A group of South King County cities, where projections show that they would need space for more than 600 inmates, is already working on identifying a site for such a jail.

"The cities are pretty far down this planning process," Bartley said.

Meanwhile, the cities in North King County, including Seattle, are days away from a report that will help determine whether they build a single jail for 640 inmates or whether Seattle builds its own jail for 440, with the other North County cities constructing a 200-bed jail.

Four possible sites for a new Seattle jail have been identified, and the city began public forums in those neighborhoods. One meeting on June 12 drew more than 250 people to the Haller Lake Community Club, the vast majority of whom were opposed to a jail in their area. The next forum on the jail will be July 12.

Those involved with Seattle's plans all recognize that building a jail in the city will be controversial.

"It is no one's first choice to build new jail capacity anywhere in this county," Ceis said.

Ceis suggested that the county could prove it was serious about working with the cities by amending the proposed ordinance to include money in the 2009 budget for expansion of the Regional Justice Center in Kent, adding space for 460 inmates, and resumption of a 24-hour booking desk there.

In 2000, booking hours were cut, meaning law enforcement officers working weekends and evenings must book all their prisoners in the single jail in downtown Seattle.

The county's recent change in position, what one official called a "180-degree change," has been met with some dismay.

Auburn Assistant Police Chief Larry Miller told the council that just last year, several of the cities asked county representatives to work together on a study examining the jail needs of the cities, but were rebuffed.

Then, just a month ago, he said, they were contacted by county officials wanting to work together once more.

"It was a little frustrating, at this eleventh hour, for the county to come back to us when we are so far along in our process," Miller said.

Still, county officials hope there is time for a new relationship, one that would give the county the job of managing a regional jail system.

"We may be just in time to reverse course," County Councilman Larry Gossett said.

But some city leaders were clearly skeptical of that view. "In some respects, the train has left the station," Kirkland City Councilman Bob Sternoff said.