NEIGHBORHOOD MAY BE ON LIST AS COUNTY NEED GROWS
The city has hired a consultant company to study possible locations for a new jail and one of the spots is in Interbay, according to some people involved with the issue.The city, for its part, is keeping mum about specific locations - including Interbay - but 35 cities in King County are being considered, according to Catharine Cornwall, a lead analyst on the project from the Office of Policy and Management.A new jail needs to be built because the King County Jail downtown, the Norm Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent and the juvenile-detention facility in Seattle will no longer house misdemeanor offenders from the county beginning in 2013, said Larry Phillips, a Magnolia resident and a King County Council member."We have done that for years, but we're running out of space," he said. The county's lock-ups will top out by 2015, according to Phillips. "We're looking at safe ways to extend that to 2020," he added. "But at some point, we're going to have to have a new jail." Potential sites for a new jail have to be at least seven acres in size and be in an industrial or commercial area near a major arterial, said Tim Burgess, a Queen Anne resident and Seattle City Council member.South End cities will build their own facility, while Seattle will team up with both Eastside and North End cities to build a new jail, he said. Burgess has heard that Interbay is in the running. "But there's a long list of potential sites," he cautioned. At this stage, the consultant company is sending out feelers. "They started talking to community groups, but just on an informal basis," Cornwall stressed.One of those contacted was the Magnolia Community Club president, Nancy Bainbridge Rogers. The consultant wanted to know what concerns Magnolia residents might have about having a jail in Interbay, she said. "I think those concerns are pretty obvious."They include personal safety, aesthetics, property values, traffic and lighting the jail, along with ancillary uses such bail-bond companies and check-cashing places, Bainbridge Rogers said.The consultant who talked to her wouldn't say specifically that Interbay is seriously in the running for a new lock-up, she said. Pointing to the siting criteria for a new jail, however, Bainbridge Rogers said the answer is obvious. "It has to be at least on their long list."There will also be a full-blown public process later on about building a new jail, and how an estimated cost of more than $100 million for one will be paid hasn't been established yet, Cornwall said."From the citizens' perspective, it makes no sense for the city and the county to go their separate ways," Phillips said of funding. Still, the ultimate decision on where two new jails are located will be up to the mayors and city councils in the potential host cities, he conceded. Phillips thinks the response will be predictable. "Nobody's going to want a jail in their area - including Interbay."There's also another problem, according to Burgess. Building a new jail typically takes six to eight years, he said. "And we don't have that much time," he said of a deadline that's only four and a half years from now. "Add the Seattle process style, and we're already in deep doo-doo," Burgess added.The city's reticence about Interbay aside, is it really possible a new jail could go in there? "Not if I have anything to say about it," Burgess vowed.[[In-content Ad]]
