NEW Regional jail gains momentum

WENATCHEE — The coalition of counties wanting to build a new regional jail in Central Washington has grown to seven and wants money for a detailed study of the idea.

Franklin County has now joined Douglas, Chelan, Okanogan, Grant, Kittitas and Adams in talking about jointly building a facility to house inmates.

Officials from the counties met last Thursday in Yakima during the Washington State Association of Counties meeting. Officials from several Western Washington counties, including Whatcom, Skagit and Snohomish, also attended the meeting and expressed interest in building regional jails in their own areas, said Douglas County Commissioner Ken Stanton.

Under current state law, jails can only be owned and operated by a city or county. However, the coalition of Eastern Washington counties will present a bill in the upcoming legislative session to change the law and allow private entities to run jails, Stanton said.

He said the seven counties are interested in paying for construction of the jail and then paying a private operator to run it.

The state granted a similar law change several years ago to allow Martin Hall, a juvenile detention facility near Spokane in which Douglas County youth are housed, to be built by nine counties and run by a private entity. RiverCom, the 911 emergency call center in Wenatchee, is also operated by a private entity and funded by multiple government agencies.

Sen. Linda Evans Parlette, R-Wenatchee, has agreed to sponsor the bill in the Senate, and Rep. Mike Armstrong, R-Wenatchee, will lead the effort in the House, Stanton said.

Douglas County raised the idea of building the regional jail earlier this year after determining that it would be too costly to build one on their own. The commissioners have said they don’t believe the 380-bed jail in Wenatchee will be big enough for Chelan and Douglas counties and all the cities in those counties in the future, and they don’t want to invest in expanding the aging facility.

The Association of Counties has asked for $250,000 from Gov. Chris Gregoire’s capital budget to do a feasibility study on building the regional jail, Stanton said.

“The first major step is to see if it’s viable,” he said. “We need to find out how much it will cost overall and how much it will cost each of the counties.”

The study will not look at a possible location for the facility. That decision would be made after the study is done, Stanton said.