1 day Ago By Sav Kelly
WALSH COUNTY — Some Walsh County elected officials are imploring their constituents to learn the details of why the county is considering building a new jail, rather than voting against the related tax increase measures without considering the alternative, which is believed to carry the larger price tag. "We need them to attend the (public) meetings and get informed, so we can tell them everything that we have learned through this process," County Commission member Kristi Brintnell told the Grand Forks Herald. "That's really what we want.
We want the citizens to make an informed decision." ADVERTISEMENT It's estimated that over a 20-year period, it will cost $42,675,140 to design and build a new facility. Alternatively, during that same time period, it is expected that it would cost approximately $54,344,819 to close the Walsh County Jail and transport inmates to other counties.
The special election will be held May 13. Though some may question the necessity of a new jail, and how the existing facility ended up in its current state, correctional centers are only expected to last between 30 and 40 years, Sheriff Ron Jurgens said. After 50 years in operation, the Walsh County Jail has certainly exceeded its expected lifespan, Brintnell said.
Continual maintenance is likely the sole reason the facility has remained functional as long as it has. "There's only so much maintenance you can do," she said. "Things just wear out after awhile.
You just can't continue to maintain them." Beyond that, as North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation requirements become more stringent, it gets increasingly more difficult to meet those standards in a facility built in the 1970s, Brintnell said. The top concern in the jail is its pipes, Jurgens said.
Situated within concrete walls, they are rusting, corroding and in some cases disintegrating from the inside out. It is becoming more costly to keep them in working order. ADVERTISEMENT "We've looked at tearing out the pipes and starting over," he said.
"That is probably a year and-a-half to two-year process, and still we're left with a 1975 building. It's not sustainable." Other issues are the heating system, leaks in the roof that need patching on a regular basis, and mold, as well as excess moisture in the basement.
Even if these issues could all somehow be fixed, space would remain a concern. The jail was originally designed to hold 25 inmates, but has since been reduced to 16 due to DOCR assessments. The facility is beyond full, with six inmates currently held outside the county.
"So even if those issues were fixed, we're still looking at contracting our inmates out into different facilities," Jurgens said. "And the DOCR contracting the Grand Forks addition now is only going to make our problem of finding other facilities worse." Walsh County inmates have been transported to facilities throughout the state.
Looking up and down the Red River Valley, almost all county jails are at capacity, he said. The proposal Working with The Samuels Group, a construction company, it was determined a 42-bed facility would be best suited to Walsh County's needs not only today, but for the years to come, Brintnell said. ADVERTISEMENT She emphasizes this build would be done solely for Walsh County, not taking anyone else's needs into consideration.
But if there are empty spaces in the new jail during its early days, filling those with other counties' inmates would both ease overcrowding across the region and bring revenue into Walsh County. To make this happen, both the property tax and sales tax measures must pass when voted on during a special election May 13. "We need a 'yes' vote to both of those to be able to build a new jail," Brintnell said.
There would be a 20-mill increase in property taxes. For someone with a residential property valued at $100,000, they would pay an additional $90 in property tax. If their land is commercial or agricultural, the same property value would result in a $100 tax increase.
Sales tax would increase by 0.75%. "If you go and buy something for $100 — that sales tax is applicable to — it's going to cost you 75 cents extra," Brintnell said.
These tax increases would last only until bonds for the project are paid off. ADVERTISEMENT The timeline of building a new jail is not certain, especially because of the region's unpredictable winters, but Jurgens suspects some ground work could be done before the end of 2025. The entire build could hopefully be completed within the latter half of 2027.
Assuming the existing facility remains operational during that time, inmates would stay there until the new jail is fully built. Inmates would then be moved and the old facility would be demolished. The new jail would be attached to the courthouse, which will allow the county to address that building's heating and air conditioning problems.
"By putting the jail onto the courthouse and attaching it to our admin building next to us, that would help take care of heating three buildings," Jurgens said. The heating and air conditioning system makes up $5 million of the project's estimated cost. Though a significant expense, it's a necessary one, Jurgens said, and building the jail there makes the endeavor more cost efficient.
He also considers the location to be ideal because of the current lack of security measures in the courthouse. This build would funnel everyone through a new lobby area where they would be properly screened before entering, Jurgens said. There would also be an elevator that would allow inmates to be taken directly into courtrooms.
As of right now, they are walked across a parking lot and come in through the same entrance as everyone else. ADVERTISEMENT The alternative If the county does not build a new jail, the existing one will soon fall into a state of total disrepair, and the county will be paying daily fees to hold all of its inmates elsewhere, in addition to the cost of transportation, Brintnell said. These expenses are included in the $54 million estimate, which also considers the cost of building a holding facility.
A sheriff's office will also need to be built, as the current one is attached to the jail and shares its issues. The building costs are estimated to be around $12.5 million.
The rest of the estimate — around $41.5 million — is the cost of transporting and holding inmates at other facilities. "I think we were all a little shocked by that, when we had that data put together," Brintnell said.
"It was a surprise how expensive it was to transport." The data was an eye-opener for the commissioners, she said, yet she believes it was actually more of a conservative estimate, because it considers the distance to Grand Forks. Walsh County can rarely get its inmates into the Grand Forks jail, so the distance traveled is usually farther.
Something else to consider is that whereas the money to build would come from taxes, there is no dedicated funding source for the alternative. "There is no extra money to transport them, so that's all going to come out of our general fund, and we don't have the money in our general fund to pay that," Brintnell said. "So we're going to have to start cutting services to our citizens of Walsh County, and that's going to be very difficult.
" ADVERTISEMENT The vote "It was a unanimous vote by the commissioners that we felt we should move forward with proposing a new jail," Brintnell said. "Now it goes to the citizens for a vote." To learn more about the project, residents are advised to visit the Walsh County Vote website which, among other things, calculates how much a person's property tax would increase.
There is also a Walsh County Vote Facebook page. A significant amount of work went into these pages, Brintnell said, because commissioners wanted to provide clear, thorough information so their constituents can understand why this was determined to be the best option. Upcoming informational meetings and tours of the jail are scheduled for April 14 and April 21.
The first will begin 1 p.m. Monday, April 14, at the Walsh County Courthouse, located at 600 Cooper Ave.
in Grafton. The second, also on April 14, will begin at 5:30 p.m.
at the Minto Community Center, located at 114 Harvey Ave. in Minto. The last will be held at 5:30 p.
m. Monday, April 21, at the Lankin American Legion, located at 405 Main St. in Lankin.
"I would encourage the public to come out to these community meetings and get an idea what the plan is and how it’s going to be paid for, and then also come for the jail tours, because I think it all ties it together, and gives a better idea of what the issues are," Jurgens said. "We want to make sure everybody has the information to make a well-informed decision when they go to the ballot. That’s our goal.
” Walsh County residents are encouraged to contact any of the commissioners with questions they have about this project and the upcoming vote. Their contact information can be found on the Walsh County website. The special election will be held May 13, with in-person voting in the Walsh County Courthouse "Famers Room" from 9 a.
m. to 7 p.m.
Voting can also be done by mail, but an application must be submitted to receive a mail-in ballot..
