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By Evan Smith
ShorelineAreaNews Politics Writer
Shoreline will start using the Snohomish County jail as its primary lock-up facility Monday.
The City Council approved a contract with Snohomish County at its November 22 meeting.
The City will continue its contract with King County for limited jail use.
City Management Analyst John Norris told me Thursday that Shoreline would use the Snohomish County jail as its primary place to house prisoners because it costs the City about half of what King County charges.
Shoreline also has been using the Yakima County jail for prisoners held for a month or more, but the City’s contract with Yakima County expires at the end of December. That contract has required Shoreline to pay for a certain amount of space, whether it uses the space or not.
A City news release said Friday that using the Snohomish County jail as the City’s primary jail facility, instead of the King County jail and the Yakima County jail, is projected to save Shoreline as much as $700,000 per year.
The Snohomish County jail will charge the City $90 to book someone into the jail and $62.50 per day to hold each prisoner the release said, adding that the rates will increase annually at the rate of inflation with a cap of 3 percent.
The Yakima County jail charges $127 per day per prisoner. King County charges $119 per day per defendant with a $380 booking fee.
Shoreline’s contract with Snohomish County doesn’t specify a certain amount of use. That means that the City doesn’t pay for space it doesn’t need. However, Norris said, it also means that Shoreline is guaranteed space only when Snohomish County and cities in the County aren’t using the space. Still, Norris said, Snohomish County officials have assured Shoreline that the jail has plenty of space available for the foreseeable future.
In addition to using the Snohomish County jail, Shoreline will also begin use of new “video-court system” for ‘first appearance,’ probable cause and bail hearings for those defendants booked into the Snohomish County jail.
The video-court system, a joint project of the City, the Snohomish County jail and the King County District Court, is expected to make these hearings more efficient and cost effective, the news release said.
The announcement came as the Seattle Times reported Thursday that the King County jail has excess capacity.
Norris said that he hopes that the increased supply of King-County jail space will lead to lower costs for cities that use the jail.
He said that Shoreline keeps its contract with King County because sometimes it needs to use the jail in case Seattle police arrest someone with a warrant from Shoreline.
When King County said a few years ago that it would run out of space and end its contract with County cities, seven cities in South King County built their own jail in Des Moines, and five cities in north King County began a selection process for a north county jail.
The north King County jail-selection process now has stopped, Norris said. That means that the cities are no longer considering the sites that each city had proposed, including the surplus Aldercrest School property in the north end of Shoreline.
Now, Shoreline has extended its contract with King County through 2016 and is negotiating to extend that contract through 2020, Norris said. The contract with Snohomish County extends through 2016.
The Times reported Thursday that County jails in Seattle and Kent have seen a drop in inmate numbers over the past decade.
Managers of the County jails and the Des Moines project say all the cells will be needed some time in the future, the Times report, adding, “For now, the county jails are competing with others for contracts to house inmates from cities, and officials are considering whether to lower their per-prisoner price.”
The Times noted that the growing number of unfilled cells represents a dramatic turnaround from 2002, when then-King County Executive Ron Sims told cities they would have to remove all their misdemeanor inmates from the county jails so that taxpayers wouldn't be on the hook to build a third, expensive lockup.
By last May, the Times said, the abundance of jail space had become so apparent that Seattle and the four north County suburban cities suspended their search for a regional jail site and King County agreed to let them continue using the county jail.
The Times said that in September, King County Executive Dow Constantine reduced the amount of a planned increase in the fee charged for holding cities' inmates.
The King County jails hold felons, inmates arrested for misdemeanors outside cities, and prisoners arrested by cities and the state department of corrections.
The number of "County-responsible inmates" -- felons and misdemeanor offenders arrested in unincorporated areas -- dropped from an average daily population of about 2,000 in 2007 to 1,500 in 2009, the Times reported.
Adding in inmates sent by cities and the state DOC, the population is still 900 below the capacity of 3,039, the Times said.
This report contains many assertions as "fact" by John Norris and other officials about the various jail contracts.
ReplyDeleteThe situation vis a vis jail usage by Shoreline seems to have stabilized so we no longer have to consider imposing a jail on a suburban neighborhood. That's a good thing for sure.
But one has to wonder about the veracity of anything City staff have to say on this matter or other matters, when they asserted a few years ago that we "must" buy in to the process by nominating Ballinger neighborhood as "jail bait". Now, thanks to Dow Constantine's negotiations and new analysis, we are no longer being threatened with this hideous and divisive political conundrum of a gigantic jail in one of our neighborhoods. Citizens said repeatedly, as did other councilmembers such as Seattle's Nick Licata that the number of beds needed and space was incorrect, and could be better addressed with other programs.
Some questions to think about:
How on earth did we ever get forced into that previous nastiness? Why weren't staff able to just contract with Snohomish before as councilmembers asked?
Why couldn't Shoreline challenge the assumptions that engulfed us into that nasty fight in the first place. Why are we always stuck with "facts" that are apparently not facts?
Why do citizens have to spend hundreds of hours and thousands of
dollars of their time and money challenging "facts" that end up being
WRONG?
While we have good staff who work hard, we wonder what was behind this entire fiasco?
Why do governments assert things as fact, when they have access to analysis that can show these are WRONG?
Why was Shoreline subjected to this nasty fight that tore apart the fabric of our community?
Please John Norris, let's hear it!
For John Norris and other members of the City Manager's office to answer of the questions posed by the first poster, they would have to answer questions like:
ReplyDeleteWhy did the city "administratively" select Aldercrest when the city's own comprehensive plan clearly states that citizen participation will be valued AND for essential public facilities (which the jail constitutes) will be sited after a public process through a series of public meetings. Administrative selection does not meet the standards set forth in the comprehensive plan, but we all know the city only conforms to the comprehensive plan when it convenient for them.
The city never satisfactorily responded to the letter of inquiry from Tim Ford of the Washington State Attorney General Office about their executive session for the purpose of acquiring real estate in July 2008, when no real estate was being acquired, an apparent violation of state law.
The city staff, along with staff of other cities involved in planning the Northeast cities jail, never would admit that there may not be a need for a new jail. Nor would the Shoreline city staff seek out an alternative contract to Yakima during all these years, Snohomish County was always available - how much money did the Shoreline city staff waste?
Left unsaid is how much money the Northeast cities spent on environmental, engineering, and architectural studies and design fees for the abortive effort to place a new jail. They took the money from the sale of the Overlake land that they received from King County, sold it, and just flushed the money down a rat hole for an completely unnecessary facility. The staff of Shoreline, Redmond, Kirkland, and Seattle should be held accountable for waste, fraud, and abuse of public funds.