The Corrections Partnership Committee, Jail Study Committee, meets in a conference room in the Justice Center. I just got to wondering if there might be drugs or other evidence contraband that might be stored in the vicinity where the fumes are getting into that conference room causing some of the the committee members to hallucinate or have memory loss.

That committee is made up of eight members. Three commissioners and four "stake holders" as their called and one citizen member. From what I've read, sounds like the stakeholders and the commissioners may have a little different idea of what's needed. You see, the commissioners are the ones who have to figure out how to pay for the project. The stakeholders just figure out how to spend the money. The stakeholders are Sheriff Tim Guider, Court Clerk Lisa Niles, Sessions Judge Rex Dale and District Attorney Russell Johnson. Commissioners are Henry Cullen, Bill Satterfield and Leo Bradshaw. Citizen member, Scott Newman.   

This whole jail expansion thing started because of jail over crowding. Sometimes 20-30 over the current bed space. From that, the first estimates came in from 24 mil. to 47 mil. to resolve the problem. Everybody knew that was ridiculous so cost estimates of 10 mil. to 12 mil. were brought in. Now after their last meeting, looks like the estimates have ballooned back up to the 20 mil. range.

Lets say we need to add on for 50 more beds, nah, lets go with 100 more beds. At 20 mil. that's about $200,000.00 per bed. That's some pretty high priced bed space for criminals.

I'm sorry, but the thought of spending that kind of money just to house a bunch of scofflaws and ne'er-do-wells just doesn't fly.

A large property tax increase will be required for almost any addition to the jail.

I would say I hope the committee keeps meeting to work out the details but if every time they meet the cost is going to double, maybe they ought not meet any more at all.