Shoreline site no longer studied for a regional municipal jail

By Susan Will, Shoreline Communications Specialist

 Photos courtesy Friends of Aldercrest

Shoreline’s Ballinger neighborhood – as well as the rest of the City – can let out a sigh of relief as the NEC jail siting process comes to an end. Today King County Executive Dow Constantine announced that King County is offering jail beds to cities through 2020 and plans to form a regional jail planning group. Due to the county’s proposal in concert with new options for contracting jail beds regionally, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn has recommended ending the process of siting a new regional municipal jail.

“King County’s offer for a regional solution and additional beds through 2020 provides our City the confidence to sunset the environmental impact review process,” said Shoreline Mayor Keith McGlashan. “That is truly good news for our community, particularly for our residents in the Ballinger neighborhood now that Shoreline no longer has a site under consideration for a jail.”

Cities in King County originally formed regional groups to address the projected loss of jail bed space after King County’s bed space projections determined there would not be available jail beds for cities after 2012. The north and east cities including Shoreline and Seattle formed the NEC and the southern County cities formed the South Correctional Entity (SCORE). SCORE is building a jail, now under construction in Des Moines and expected to open in 2011, which will have jail beds available for rent to King County cities through 2020.

With the available beds from King County and SCORE, and with the other municipal jail beds available in the region, the NEC believes there will be enough capacity to cover all of its misdemeanant jail bed needs through 2020 without having to build additional capacity.

As a result of these projections, Seattle has recommended and Shoreline and the rest of the NEC cities concur, stopping the current environmental impact review process being conducted on the six potential sites for a regional municipal jail for north and east cities. Stopping the process will remove the Shoreline site, along with the other sites, from further consideration as a possible location for the construction of a regional municipal jail.

For more information, contact City Manager’s Office Management Analyst Eric Bratton at 206-801-2217.