Jail Task Force seeks direction from city

The chairman of the Red Willow County jail task force told county commissioners Monday morning a concrete "yea" or "nay" from the City of McCook would help the task force proceed with Phase II of the county's jail study.

Referring to his fellow jail task force members, chairman Reuben Hoff Jr. said, "Nobody wants to proceed without information from the city."

For more than a year now, city officials have declined invitations from the jail study group and commissioners to participate in the county-sponsored study into whether Red Willow County needs a jail.

The first phase of a jail needs assessment, completed this spring, indicated that Red Willow County does, indeed, need its own jail and should proceed into Phase II of the process. Hoff said Monday, "We need to move forward with site selection, if the city joins the effort or not."

Commission Chairman Earl McNutt said the task force and commissioners may get some answers to their questions during the city council's meeting Monday, July 18.

At a council meeting July 5, McNutt complained that it had been more than a month since he presented Phase I results to officials at the city offices, at the end of May, hoping to get the item on the council's June 6 agenda and generate some discussion of a joint public safety center.

In a letter to commissioners last week, City Manager John Bingham said the jail study will be on the city council agenda next week. "Even at the July 18 meeting, there may be no answers and no commitment," McNutt said, "but we need to know one way or the other which way the city wants to go."

Decisions yet to be discussed and made include food service, laundry and housekeeping, medical and mental health service, indoor and outdoor exercise, programs, administrative and public areas, entry and exit from the facility and security and surveillance systems. McNutt said the next steps in the process could be addressed quite quickly if the task force could get some answers from the city.

Commissioners gave Hoff the go-ahead to develop a computer web site that would keep the public up-to-date on the progress of the jail study.

In other action, commissioners:

* Discussed, in a 25-minute closed session, the possibility of purchasing land.

* Discussed with Sheriff Gene Mahon the possibility of the sheriff's department creating its own dispatching center, in response to the city's proposal to increase what it charges the county for dispatching the sheriff's officers from $12,000 a year to $46,000-$50,000 a year. Mahon said it could cost approximately $46,000 for the county to run its own dispatching service.

McNutt said it would be wise to create a budget line item to pay for dispatching equipment and personnel, if that becomes necessary.

* And Mahon discussed an inventory of equipment purchased by the county with federal Homeland Security funds. Mahon said lists will be created of equipment delivered to each emergency response entity, which will then be responsible for that equipment's maintenance and replacement, relieving the county of that responsibility.

Mahon told commissioners that the Central Nebraska Radio Interoperability System will greatly improve emergency and law enforcement communication capabilities, but funding for the program will become harder and harder to qualify for each year. Mahon said, too, the amount of the CRNI grants each year will vary, and participants can pull out of the agreement at anytime.

* Sitting as a board of equalization, commissioners denied, on the state's and the county assessor's recommendation, a tax exemption application from National LambdaRail Inc. for fiber optic lines installed across the county several years ago; approved a list of omitted and corrected property valuations which included several additional Farm Service Administration maps from farmers; and approved a motor vehicle tax refund of $29.20 for Robert Jackson, who inadvertently registered the wrong trailer.

* Discussed an e-mail from the Nemaha County clerk regarding counties' guidelines for general assistance and medical assistance policies.

* Reviewed a direct final rule from the Federal Aviation Administration in which the radius of Class E restricted surface area at McCook Regional Airport will expand from within a 4.6-mile radius to within a 5.0-mile radius and the Class E restricted airspace upwards from 700 feet is reduced from within a 7.6 miles radius to within a 7.5-mile radius. The "McCook Regional Airport" name was also corrected in legal descriptions.

* Reviewed and files these reports: the county clerk's and clerk of the district court's monthly fees; the fair board's financial report; and the update on CDBG re-usable loan fund accounts.