COLUMBUS — Rising on the city's industrial edge, bound by lanes of traffic and an auto scrapyard, is the frame of a new county jail.

Hundreds of inmates will reside at the facility, living within direct supervision of staff in an environment intended to rehabilitate. The building sits a few miles from downtown courthouses.

The description of the future Franklin County jail site sounds a lot like the proposed Lucas County jail at North Detroit Avenue and East Alexis Road — on the industrial edge of Toledo adjacent to a major auto scrapyard.

So why have efforts to build a new $185 million jail and behavioral health center in North Toledo fallen short so far? Voters overwhelmingly rejected a tax levy in November to fund the jail, and the North Toledo proposal is only the latest in a series of stalled attempts by the county to build a new jail.

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The latest major opposition group, Keep The Jail Downtown Toledo, contends commissioners picked the North Detroit Avenue site without sufficient neighborhood input. 

“When you talk to commissioners, their attitude was, ‘This is what we're doing,’” group representative Mary Dutkowski said.

County spokesman Mark Reiter said commissioners tried reaching out to her and other group members. Officials went door to door with meeting invitations, held public sessions, and invited them to discussions, he said.

“What she’s saying is wrong and unfair,” Mr. Reiter said of Ms. Dutkowski’s comments.

The jail project in Columbus offers a profile in how such efforts reach groundbreaking. Franklin County officials cited as key an ability to increase sales tax for funding, a lack of vocalized opposition, and help from the city of Columbus as reasons for their project’s success.

Franklin County Commissioner John O'Grady described what’s transpiring in his community as a “generational project,” the “mothership” of a public construction boom.

“It's a kind of once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. When we knew that this was coming up, we wanted to make sure that we were going to get this project right,” Mr. O'Grady said.

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In Lucas County, the recent rejection of the new jail tax marks the second time public opposition interfered with county officials’ plans.

Commissioners approved a 1.9-mill property tax measure for the November, 2017, ballot to fund construction of a $150 million jail they announced for a site on Angola Road near Airport Highway. But the Angola Road plan drew stiff opposition from nearby residents. Commissioners eventually changed direction and tried to acquire as a new jail site the city’s police impound lot on Dura Avenue in North Toledo.

That effort, too, failed, and commissioners cited that failure as the reason they pulled their 1.9-mill property tax increase from the November ballot.

Ms. Dutkowski of Keep the Jail Downtown Toledo said it’s clear why voters more recently by a 59-41 margin rejected the November, 2018, ballot proposal. They didn’t want to pay the tax increase, and many are opposed to the new jail site.

The group broadly believes the county should consider instead renovating the current facility or building a multi-story jail in Toledo’s downtown. Members successfully backed a special election referendum. On Feb. 26, voters will weigh in changing city charter language in a way that would restrict the jail location to downtown.

County officials have said they doubt the charter change is even enforceable, but nonetheless Ms. Dutkowski’s group resumed campaigning this month.

In the wake of the November election, Mr. Gerken said the county is looking to create a “blue ribbon committee” comprising officials and members of the public. The committee will be tasked with looking at what options the county has to press forward and will provide feedback and suggestions.

Mr. Gerken said county officials do not expect to return to the ballot seeking funding in May, and it is too early to tell about future dates. He also said county leaders plan to seek capital funds from the state as part of larger attempts from counties to obtain such infrastructure investment. 

Keep the Jail Downtown Toledo members may be interested in joining a committee after the special election, but Ms. Dutkowski said she would likely pass at this time. Ms. Dutkowski reiterated the group is going to the ballot to keep the jail downtown.

“We’re even more convinced that this is not the jail for the county,” Ms. Dutkowski said.

County officials, meanwhile, remain committed to the site in North Toledo. They identify as attributes its size, zoning, major road access, and lack of sightlines to neighbors.

“These are not easy projects. They do take years to do,” Mr. Gerken said.

DIFFERENT RESOURCES

Franklin County is constructing its new jail with sales tax dollars and in two parts. Phase 1 will house nearly 900 inmate beds at a cost of about $175 million. It's expected to open fall 2021. When that happens, officials will close a nearly 50-year-old downtown Columbus jail.

Phase 2 would increase the bed count past 2,000 and shutter the county's other jail in southern Columbus. This site is 23 acres on a former farm with two operational levels. Total cost of both phases is roughly $400 million.

Mr. O’Grady said Franklin County leaders saw no pushback on building a new jail. Several neighbors told The Blade as well they had little to no concerns.

While Lucas County commissioners sought ballot approval for a tax increase, Franklin County leaders did not.

Instead, funding comes from a quarter percent sales tax enacted in 2013. Money from that increase also funds a new morgue, economic development, and workforce training.

Lucas County, however, is among the more than half of all Ohio counties that have reached the sales tax limit of 7.25 percent, according to state data.

Building a jail is one of the most challenging projects with which to ask resident assistance, Lucas County Commissioner Tina Skeldon Wozniak said. It’s difficult to compare Toledo and Columbus, she said, and Franklin County officials did not have to go to ballot for funding.

“The bottom line is, the resources are very different [in Lucas County] than in Columbus,” she said.

Members of the business community did initially question the cost of Franklin County’s jail proposal, Mr. O’Grady said. But administrators explained the sales tax increase would fund a strong jail system that helps rehabilitate inmates.

Residents at public meetings expressed enthusiasm for increased law enforcement from the new jail, Franklin County sheriff's Chief Deputy Geoff Stobart said.

Both instances highlight one lesson Franklin County leaders learned early: Constant conversation with everyone affected was key to success.

“Because where we could have run into issues is to try to do things in silos, and we don't have time for that,” deputy county administrator Kris Long said. “This project is so huge that sometimes small decisions are not as small as they seem.”

Franklin County officials said their relationship with area municipal governments also helped secure necessary funding. The county has for years contracted with 26 jurisdictions to house inmates in the county jail system at a daily rate of $82. That figure is expected to increase slightly under a new agreement to meet costs.

Toledo and Lucas County, meanwhile, recently went to blows over inmate costs.

Lucas County Commissioners in December, 2014, sued Toledo over money they said it owed the county for inmates booked by Toledo police. Former Mayor D. Michael Collins enacted changes that shifted city jail costs to the county by filing criminal charges under state law rather than municipal code.

The lawsuit became a sticking point when commissioners in 2017 tried to shift their Angola Road jail site plans to acquisition of the city’s impound lot on Dura Avenue.

Then-Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson refused to unlock the lawsuit over responsibility of jail costs from the impound lot question.

In June, the Ohio Supreme Court sided with the city and found Lucas County responsible for inmate costs.

Mr. Gerken said that, if Toledo maintained participation with inmate payments, those millions of dollars annually would be sufficient funds for financing construction of a new jail.

Mike Beazley, Oregon city administrator and policy adviser to Toledo’s mayor, called it “not realistic” to expect cities to step up in this way. Lucas County cities, including Toledo, will continue working with the county following the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision, he said.

“Few cities in Ohio participate in the type of funding that Lucas County is seeking,” Mr. Beazley said. “Ultimately, countywide services should be planned and funded countywide.”

County and city agreements come with additional trade-offs, Mr. Beazley said. Franklin County, for instance, operates a county municipal court that absorbs costs cities would otherwise bear, he said.

Mr. Beazley said it is not unusual for a significant plan to be defeated the first time at the ballot. Even the widely supported Mud Hens stadium was rejected by similar margins, he said.

“Jails are never popular and always hard to accomplish,” Mr. Beazley said.

He suggested all parties step back and assess how next to approach the proposal.

Toledo City Councilman Tom Waniewski said county voters likely felt building costs were too high with the new tax. He is advocating for a compromise on the jail and greater public cooperation.

Mr. Waniewski said he would like to see a new jail built downtown using publicly owned properties.

“We all have to keep an open mind and open ears on all of this,” Mr. Waniewski said.

Lucas County Sheriff John Tharp told The Blade recently that before county commissioners decided on Angola Road and now Detroit Avenue jail sites, he proposed the new jail be built downtown on the block at Michigan and Jackson streets containing the county Family Court Center and the two blocks to the west. Commissioners rejected the plan as too expensive after county experts evaluated it, he said.

In Franklin County, estimated cost per square foot of the jail’s first phase is about $407. Construction costs may grow in the second phase.

The cost per square foot of the planned Lucas County Jail is about $450 for the entire building, which remains subject to further design changes. Officials note Franklin County's building costs are in 2018 dollars. Lucas County’s are in 2020-21 dollars, with projected cost increases built in.

Through December, Lucas County has paid Columbus-based Pizzuti Solutions LLC $993,356 for owner’s representative services and Poggemeyer Design Group $614,755 for architectural and engineering work and other services.

Those figures total $1,608,111 spent on these services. In April, commissioners approved spending $819,250 to purchase the North Toledo site.

Pizzuti serves as owner’s representative for both counties.

REHABILITATION

What the two counties’ projects share is a vision for housing inmates in environments that work to rehabilitate.

Whereas jails were built primarily to hold the incarcerated, modern-day jails need to function almost like hospitals that offer inmates mental health and substance abuse treatments, Mr. O’Grady said.

“We have become the largest mental health provider in the state of Ohio, to be quite frank,” Franklin County Chief Deputy Stobart said. “On any given day, there are probably close to 800 folks in our jail on some type of psychiatric medication, many of those people having some type of co-occurring drug or alcohol problem.”

Franklin County representatives visited jails across the country and took ideas from each, Chief Deputy Stobart said. The Las Colinas Detention and Re-entry Facility in San Diego County was among the better women’s jails they saw.

The California jail opened in August, 2014, replacing a 47-year-old jail at a cost of $268 million. It has an “open booking” area, in which inmates remain in open seating before a medical screening and booking. They can use telephones and restrooms.

Lucas, Franklin, and San Diego county jails all will, or already do, optimize a direct-supervision model. This ensures clearer views of inmate housing areas, such as placing corrections officers in those sections rather than stations segregated elsewhere.

Doing so, however, creates a larger building footprint. Building outward, instead of upward, is a more cost efficient way to impose this model, Franklin County leaders said.

Former Lucas County Commissioner Carol Contrada said the county’s plan was good, but complex, and shared in a relatively compressed time frame. The site at Alexis and Detroit remains the location, she said.

She said county officials did solicit significant stakeholder involvement, including involvement from groups already taking part in local criminal justice reform efforts, she said.

“It takes, I think, time really to begin to resonate with the voting public,” she said.

Mr. Gerken said each community is unique, and it is hard to compare Toledo to Columbus.

County officials have spoken several times about the jail with their Franklin County counterparts. Local officials are also monitoring Franklin County’s mental health work, while they advance their own justice reforms. This includes use of a $3.5 million MacArthur Foundation grant that has helped reduce the county’s jail population by 18 percent in one year.

Combined population recently at the county jail and Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio near Stryker was down 35 percent from 2015 levels.

The Lucas County jail project completed significant pre-design work and possesses a location officials believe is best, Mr. Gerken said.

“We’ve got a lot of work [done] that doesn’t really have a time stamp on it,” Mr. Gerken said.

First Published January 13, 2019, 11:45 a.m.