City Commission - Regular Meeting

It's called to order. Clerk call the roll.

Mr. Ricketts. Mr. Rigsby. Mr. or Mrs. Tackett. Here. Mr. Wallace.

Here.

Mr. Rue.

Here.

Sasha Rittenhouse calling to order the Board of Clark County Commissioners for the recorder. I'm Sasha Rittenhouse.

Charles Patterson. Greg Koffenberger.

Sheriff Chris Clark. Wonderful.

I want to thank everybody for coming tonight. The purpose of the meeting is to share information about the proposed future site for the public safety building. And we are going to have a presentation by Sheriff Clark. We would like to have comments from everyone. We're just asking that everybody would just simply fill out their comment card. They do not need to announce their address when they speak at either one of the podiums. We're going to take comment cards up to the end of the presentation. So there probably will be questions during the presentation you may have. We're just simply asking that you would follow this protocol so we have your information on file. And then you'll have three minutes to share your opinion as well. We'll continue that. Our hard stop will be eight o'clock tonight. We feel like we'll get everybody's thoughts and opinions throughout that time. If we feel like there needs to be a future meeting to do this, President Rittenhouse and I have discussed that and I know our commission would be willing to listen to more comments if necessary. So the purpose is to share as much information as we care. we can share and have an open dialogue. So with that, Sheriff Clark.

That's better. So tonight we're here to discuss the proposed location for the new public safety facility, which is, they told me I had to turn this on.

There we go.

Which is, for those who don't know, we'll get the location here in a little bit, but it's on State Route 72 North, just south of 334. So the reason that we are looking to build a new facility is simply planning for a safer, more functional public safety building. Our goals are to develop a facility that can safely and efficiently serve law enforcement and law enforcement personnel, individuals of those who are in custody, families, attorneys, and other visitors, courts, criminal justice partners, and a broader Clark County community. One thing that I wanted to discuss right off the bat is the difference between jails and prisons. So I've seen a lot and I heard a lot of we don't want a prison up there. Jails are very different than prisons. Prisons are designed to be long term facilities where jails are more short term. We deal with high volume. The people who come into the jail generally don't stay very long. Our average daily population as of recently was I believe four and a half days. Jails are a maximum of 18 months, where prisons can be up to several years. Prisons are designed with yards, work areas, extensive medical facilities, and they house inmates that are convicted of felonies. Jails don't have that. They are hardened facilities that normally have the houses. Inmates are housed inside. They do not generally go out into a yard. This facility would not have a yard, so all inmates would be inside a facility at all times. Jails have a much higher sense of security and are much more secure than general population prison housings. So why are we playing for a new facility? So per the state of Ohio, our facility is designed to house 167 inmates. As of August 17, our population was 211. That was three days ago. Today, at 5 o'clock, our population was 210. That's 26% overpopulation. That's about what our average is. Our average daily population as of today was 206. So we have limited space for treatment and programming. In today's world of law enforcement, that is crucial for rehabilitation. We're really good at the incarceration, but not so much the rehabilitation. We need to do better. Treatment and programming lowers our recidivism rate and better prepares inmates for return to society. The current facility has limited space for mental health services. The majority of the people who are inside the facility right now have some sort of mental health issue that needs to be addressed. And in a correctional facility, it is a perfect time for us to address those issues. especially when they're willing. Mental health is a difficult thing. When people are on the outside of a facility, they generally don't seek mental health treatment. Inside, they are more motivated to seek mental health. So we have to make sure that we have those facilities and those resources available to them. There's no dedicated officer training space at the Clark County Public Safety Building right now. We have a training room that doubles as a meeting space that we do trainings in. We hold promotion ceremonies. But we don't have a dedicated training space. And the training space we do have is extremely limited on what we can do in there. So this isn't something that we've thrown together. This is something that's been going on for several years. We started talking about the possibility of a new facility 2012, 2013. Back in 2019, DLZ was contracted by the Clark County Commission to do a feasibility study on whether or not we need a new facility and whether or not it was feasible to build one. That study did show that we were in need of a facility, that our facility was at its end of life. We had these studies updated in 23 and again in 25 to make sure that we were addressing all aspects of the community's needs and make sure that whatever we look to build is going to be sustainable for the next 30 to 40 years. We formed a public safety committee in 2025. We still meet on a regular basis to discuss future plans and needs for public safety and for what we need in the way of a criminal justice center here in Clark County. October 25th, excuse me, we identified a site in August of 2025, which is 72 South. We had an open house October 25th, just similar to what we had here to get public opinion, public feedback. We did have a sales tax that was on the ballot November of 25th, November of 25th that failed. So recognizing that we needed more public input, we put out a countywide survey in January of 2026. So when we got the results back from that, we realized that the public was not supportive of the 72 South location. And we needed to go back to the drawing board and look for other sites. So we did evaluate several other sites. We have over 30 sites that we evaluated that were found to be not viable for a variety of reasons. That was January of 26 to August of 26. I'm sorry, January of 26 to most recently August 26. That's been an ongoing process to evaluate different sites. On State Route 72 was identified as a preferred site August of 2026. A lot of questions as to why we have not built downtown. The biggest reason is space. The facility that is needed to sustain for this area is going to take up a lot of acreage. and we don't have the space for that downtown. The alternative for that was to build vertically. We consulted with DLZ, our consultant on this, and we found that in order to build vertically, we could expect a 40% increase on cost of construction alone. On top of that, there would be overhead increase of $3 million a year because it takes more personnel to operate a vertical facility than it does a horizontal facility. So our estimated cost right now, if we were to build downtown, would be $175 million. This was not feasible without support of a tax levy from the public. And the public was very clear they did not want an additional sales tax be placed to support this. We were told by DLZ that to expect a 12% to 13% increase in construction costs between the start of this project until we secured a contract to construct, which is in line with the current price of $125 million for construction by 2027. So when we started looking at the different sites and where we were going to try to put this facility, one of the big things was accessibility. We can't just think about Springfield City and around Springfield City. The west end of the county, including another city of New Carlisle, is also part of our responsibility area. So we have to make sure that we have that area covered as well. We have to have a significant acreage. sufficient acreage for setbacks and screening. We want to make sure that the facility will be aesthetically pleasing and that it did not look like a prison. We don't want to build a Shawshank. We want to make sure that we support the operations of the sheriff's office and the jail. We want to make sure that we have plenty of expansion for the future. When this current facility was built in 1977, we weren't left with much options to expand, which is the problem we're dealing with right now. We have no way to expand the current facility. If we were to renovate the current facility, we would probably actually lose bed space because of the spatial requirements required by the state of Ohio. So we wanted to make sure that wherever we went, we had plenty of room to expand so next generations and future generations didn't have to go through the same things that we're dealing with right now. So we had to look at acquisition and development costs. That's where the partnership with Springfield City comes into play. So they are the owners of the property that we're looking at. And that makes a good partnership, a good avenue for partnership between city and county. So we don't look at floodplain and site development constraints. A lot of places we looked at had development constraints, like they weren't the city limits of Springfield. One of the requirements is that my office has to be within the county seat. The other one is some places we looked at were within floodplains. Several places we actually looked at were within a floodplain. And we can't build in a floodplain. And of course, we want to look at impact on surrounding properties. So when we looked at the 30 potential sites, some things that caused us to waive off of those, one was the high cost. A lot of places we looked at that would have been feasible would have cost multi-million dollars in order for us to acquire and prepare that site for construction. Poor response times. Placing it on the far side of Springfield greatly increased response times to the city of New Carlisle and minutes count. So we wanted to make sure we were in a position where we had adequate response times throughout the county. No access to public utilities. Some of the sites we looked at did not have Springfield City utilities running to them. In order for us to run resources to that site, the cost would have been very expensive, which would have made the cost to be outside of our limits. Properties were always sold under contract. Some places we looked at were already gone. Again, some of them were located in the floodplain. And we had some that we were interested in that the sellers were just not interested in discussing property acquisition with us. So talking about the site that we've selected, again, it's just west of State Route 72 and just south of 334, between 72 and 68. The site area is 50 plus acres. That's direct State Route 72 connection. That is our plan, is to have the entrance and exits come off of State Route 72, which allows us to go to 334 and hit 68 so we can be anywhere we need to be across the county very quickly. We do have water, sewer, and electric available. The acquisition cost with Springfield City is $500,000. And it allows for city and county coordination with this project. This is not something that we want to do alone. We want to have input from our partners. And this is a good way to initiate that partnership. So this is a site plan that DLZ, this is just a preliminary site plan. Nothing you see here is set in stone. So you see we have perimeter screening to the south, to the north, and to the east. I'm sorry, to the west. The jail is positioned on the north side of the property with skylighting. There will be no inmate view towards any of the surrounding areas. So one of the options that we have when building a facility like this is to be able to put in frosted glass. We have to allow sunlight to come in. That is a requirement by Ohio law. We have to allow sunlight to come in. So we can either have frosted glass to allow sunlight to come in, but the inmates can't see out. Or we can do it with no windows and just have skylight so the sun comes in through vertically. There will be no outdoor inmate areas. So the inmates will not be outside in any sort of wreck area. Everything will be inside a secure area behind double locking doors, electronic locks, multiple surveillance checkpoints, and a robust staff This neighborhood focus, we've defined a release plan to minimize community impact. We realize that there's going to be people coming in and out of this jail. That's the nature of jails. We bring people in. We let people out. It's not like a prison where people stay for long terms. People come in and out. So we're working on a plan to minimize community impact when we do releases. And the bike path, we've got a plan to reroute the bike path through the soccer fields to the west so as not to impact the site and to maintain a safe connectivity there. So one of the big questions is, why so much money? Why is a facility like this so much money? Well, it's a fully secured 456 rated bed facility designed for direct supervision. We can keep the same amount of staff or close the same amount of staff that right now supervises 206, and we can effectively supervise 456 inmates because it's direct supervision. The layout's different. We can see more inmates through direct supervision. So we'll have enhanced staff and inmate safety through the new design and construction of this facility. We have secured evidence storage. The operational efficiency of this layout reduces the staffing needs. There will be a modernized booking and intake area. We will be able to do proper inmate classification, which we cannot do now at the facility. We're required by Ohio law to classify inmates according to the severity of their crime and house them accordingly. We can only do that to a limited extent at the jail right now because of our constraints on room They'll be co-located with the jail and the sheriff's office together So the sheriff's office the entire operation the sheriff's office will be housed at this facility So you'll have a heavy law enforcement presence in that area. So it's not just a jail We're putting there. We're putting the entire sheriff's office in this facility. I Mental health and reentry. So one of the big things is medical and mental health. So we have a very small medical area that's located on the third floor of our jail right now. It's extremely small. For 167 inmates that was built in 1977, it was great. But for 2026, when you're dealing with 206 inmates and potentially more, we need something a little bit more robust so we can stop sending inmates to the hospital all the time and we can address the mental health and the physical needs of the inmates in a more efficient manner. Anytime we talk about space, anytime we talk about enhancing those types of services, it comes with a price. So we'll have dedicated facilities to support treatment and reentry programs. Reentry is critical to law enforcement and to the judicial system, in today's judicial system. We have a reentry program that started a few years ago here. A lot of jails across the United States have started up reentry programs with a direct with a direct intent to reduce recidivism. Recidivism is extremely high in this area, but by having a reentry program that allows these individuals who are being released from our jail to help get them back into society and be productive members of society, their chances of relapsing and coming back in that jail drop significantly. And we do that through education, programming, mental health treatment, and job placement, job training. There's all kinds of things we can do. The problem with it is we don't have the space to do that downtown. Right now we have... two classrooms that allow us to do programming down the jail and it's a constant fight to try to get people to try to get space in order for people to come in and do programming. So there will be a lot of advanced technology. One of the concerns was courts. We want to be close to the courts. Right now, the Clark County Jail, we do a lot of remote court appearances arraignments that sort of thing is done by remote we've been that way since covid so we've gotten away from physically removing these inmates from the jail and taking them to court now there's still going to be times when this has to happen we still have to go they have to go to trial the judge wants to see them sometimes but any chance that we can we can eliminate from removing inmates from the jail from the physical secure center of that jail We reduce the risk of any sort of escape or any sort of incidents that have happened greatly. So we want to make sure that if people are meant to be inside that facility, they're inside the secure portion of that facility. So we will do remote court. We will do video arraignments. We will do video hearings any chance that we're able to. We currently now and will continue to have video visitation. There will not be any face-to-face visitation. People can visit from home. They can come into the facility. the center and visit from the lobby. But right now, we do video visitation. There is no face-to-face visitation unless it's with their attorney. Electronic record information sharing. This is something we've been working on for quite some time with Springfield City. In this day and age, we want to make sure that we share every bit of information we can with other entities because it only makes us more effective. This will allow us to help share that information a little bit better. And modern security access controls and communication systems. So the systems we have, while still effective currently, are outdated. There are leaps and bounds differences in current technology. What we have is effective, but it could always be better. So by upgrading this, we just enhance the security and we enhance the efficiency of our jail. And with that, we're going to talk about cost. I'll turn it over to Jenny Hutchinson.

Thank you. So for those who don't know me, I am Jenny Hutchinson. I am the county administrator. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the financial piece. So the cost we have right now is $125.7 million. You may have heard us earlier in the year talking about $100 million. We had our consultant, DLZ, rework the numbers because it's been a while, and the price has gone up. So we knew with any delay or any type of delay, uh... prolonged building it's gonna cost us more and it has it's now twenty five percent more uh... so enough a hundred twenty five million what does that include hundred two million of that is actually the construction so that's a hard car cost of building the facility uh... we have about twenty three million in design engineer and soft costs so that's gonna be our architect that's going to be uh... contract management, for construction management, and all of those more service type costs. And then we have the $737,000 in the land. We talked about the land acquisition cost being $500,000. That is what we will pay to the city for the land. The city has committed to take that $500,000 and move water, sewer, and electric over to Eagle City. So the city is not making any money off of this transaction. They instead have committed to improving the area around there for recreation. So putting the construction cost in context, I have heard a lot of, why is this cost so much? And it's because it is a hardened facility. And there's not frills in this. This is a basic jail. If you look at what the construction cost for Ohio, which a lot of communities have been in the same boat we are, and that they do need new jails, it's a range between 800 and 1,100 square foot. And right now our projection is right in the middle at $931 per square foot. So how do we pay for this? This... jail is a requirement. This is not something that the commissioners can say we're not going to do. It has to happen. Um, it is one of the requirements in the Ohio advice code that we provide a safe facility to house inmates. So it is a must. So we will be moving forward. Um, there has been discussion on what we voted this down, but you voted down was the sales tax. And so that told us that you guys need to figure out how to finance this within your means that you have right now, and we will do that. So as of right now, we have $4 million in a grant that we received from the state. We have $2 million in our county capital fund, and then another $1.5 million in Ohio, one Ohio funds. We do expect that we will be able to get some more grant funding, but they will not entertain any more grant requests until we actually have a land and are ready to start building. So that right now gives us about $100 million that we will be financing, which shows right now is about an $18 million grant, which as I said, I think we can definitely get that through more grants. So that is what the county will have to go out and borrow. So that will leave us with a $6.6 million debt payment that we have to make. Our current general fund is about $50 million in expenditures. So that means we are going to have to cut about 10%. And there are some services that we provide that are not required per Ohio VICE code. So those will be, of course, the first ones that we will be looking at to cut. We do have some flexibility and some of our debt is rolling off in the next couple of years, which will definitely go towards paying this new debt payment. But like I said, this is something that we have to do and we will do moving forward. So this kind of leaves us with what's the next steps. So for this particular site, we do need to get a conditional use permit, which after this discussion, we'll determine if we're going to move forward with that. We need to acquire access agreements, which on to 72, which we are in discussion. So the ones that you saw on the plan, those are discussion items that we have currently. we'll secure those. Then we need to initiate the RFQ process for architect. And that's what we'll do by the end of the year as well. And at the same time do our site due diligence. So then moving into winter, at this point, we will select our firm and start designing the building. And then the remainder of the year, we'll kind of continue determining the site design, get our final construction pricing, determine how we're going to finance this and what our debt payment will look like moving forward, and then also do some detailed staffing and operational plans. So for ways for you guys to contact the commissioners, we have created a new website. It's called our new email. It's psc at clarkcountyohio.gov. And if you email your questions or any concerns to that, either the commissioners or the sheriff or myself will respond to you as soon as possible. That QR code takes you to our website, which actually has a lot of information already on it. As we said, we've been working on this for a year and a half. So it has those DLZ studies. It has, when we were entertaining the sales tax, it has all that information on there, so you can look at that. We'll put this presentation on there as well. And any other documents as we move forward, we're trying to be as transparent as possible with this process. So definitely ask questions. Commissioners are always available for any questions, and the sheriff as well. So that is the presentation. I do want to mention that because this is more of a listening session, we are not going to answer any questions tonight. However, we are taking a list of your questions, and we are going to answer those and have those available as soon as possible, so most likely Monday or Tuesday of next week. So you'll get your answers. We'll put them on the website, which you can use that QR code, and we'll also email those out via Facebook.

We are going to answer questions, but if we have questions that we can't answer, that's what, yeah, no, you're good.

All right, thank you.

Thank you, Sheriff. Thank you, Jenny, County Administrator. Appreciate that. Presentation was about a half an hour. We'll wait. We're not going to wait. We're going to start hearing from you and answering questions, but we'll go ahead and take cards up to another 15 minutes because I know there's some questions in your mind you've been thinking about. So I will ask that if you had your question answered and you have a card, maybe pass it along if you fully get your question answered. So we appreciate that. So we are gonna answer, we're gonna answer questions as best as possible. And like President Rittenhouse said, if we do not have the answer, we will make sure we post that answer when we're able to research it more. So we're going to kind of go back and forth since there's a lot of cards. So I'm going to go ahead and ask Diana Daniels, who's going to begin, to come over here. And Ms. Satice Kelly, if you would go over here and prepare your remarks. Terry Atkins, if you want to go over here, that would be great. You get to walk. Okay. So I've got cards. I'm going to call you once. And if you don't want to speak, you're going to turn that down. We're going to start that. So I understand. You come back to there. Go ahead, Diana.

I'm trying. Good evening. This is a refresher. Appreciate the presentation. I thought it was well thought out. I knew that this was coming. Spent a lot of time looking at the last site on the South 72 and did the same thing for this one. The one thing I will talk about from my perspective is to separate fact from emotion and the knee-jerk reaction. I'm a person of facts and not innuendo. So one thing that I did over the summer and spring was I had chances to go down to the city jail And I was appalled. If any of you have any questions or are wondering why this is such a concern, go to the jail. Walk up the steps and walk into the lobby. I was appalled at the conditions. I couldn't make it up the steps. They were crumbling so bad. Second thing I did was as soon as the site was announced, and that is an area I use a lot because I'm on the bike path all the time, so I did my due diligence. I drove up and down 68 numerous times, down 334, back down 72, and then I looked at the property from all angles. Then I got out of my car at the soccer fields and I walked the cornfield. Corn is not doing real well. It's not exactly. The soil is pretty well played out. And then I stood in the middle of that cornfield on a stool and I looked around. First thing I was looking for, because one of the concerns out on South 72 was neighborhood. And I looked and I looked and I looked and I couldn't see a house. Not one. Then the concern was, well, maybe there'll be some impact on Simon Kenton. So I went up on the hill and I looked and I looked and I looked and I couldn't even see the cornfield. So from my perspective, all of the things that you presented, you've pretty much covered all the bases. But one of the things that I have a concern for, of course, I'm a bike path user, is at what point will the bike path be interrupted and for how long before we have a reroute? because I am a cyclist and that's one of the gemstones of Clark County. Unfortunately, 72 kind of puts a kink in that. If anybody wants to go north, crossing 72 is a nightmare. But anyway, that's my basic question and that's what I had to say.

Do your due diligence.

Thank you for your comments. Do you have any answers to that?

I don't think we have a specific timeline on the bike path, but I know we'll do our best to minimize the disruption on that and try and get the new part run and then connect the old parts into it. So before we tear everything up, so hopefully we can keep you in commission.

Great.

Now go to the microphone closest to you, Mr. Atkins.

Good evening. Terry Atkins. For the record, I do support the new jail. It's obvious it's needed. List all the facts on that. Location. I think it's a win-win because, you know, how many little kids and parents playing soccer want to go in a not as sanitary of a quarter, John? possibilities of, you know, a concession facility being built there, nice restroom facilities being built there like other areas have for their outdoor activities. By having the water and everything there, you know, that's going to open up more possible usage. You know, I just think that there's so many things that need to be done. People have complained about, you know, escapees. Well, I know for a fact, you go to London, you've got two penitentiaries, and right next door pretty much to the old penitentiary, they build a seniors complex housing development within a quarter mile or less. I know for a fact they haven't had any issues over there. I know people that work at those facilities. So, and you know, the problem is, you know, I'm on the internet a lot. I sometimes more than I need to be, but you know if you want to complain on the keyboard then come to the meetings and ask the questions get the right answer i don't know how many you know people's comments it's like you know this has already been discussed at multiple meetings why you can't do this or why you can't do that but yet they still come in and say you know why can't you do this and answered um Finding a way to pay for it, that's obviously right up there, maybe not number one, but very, very high. And I'm sure that you guys will do that, and hopefully it'll work out. through talking to Sheriff Clark, services a new facility can provide are very, very needed and throughout everywhere, not just Clark County. So if we can do that, I don't know. You may answer this. Is there, you know, has there been a thought ability if need be to rent space for inmates? Like, no, it's been discussed how much it would cost us as Clark County to send somebody to another, you know, jail. So I just, I'm sure that's probably been discussed. I know it has some of the meetings, but again, thank you. Thank you. The answer, Sheriff?

The only thing I can... He brought up escapes from Ohio jails or escapes from jails, and I did some research on that. And what I found was that in the last decade, there's been nine documented escapes over the past decade, resulting in the escape of 17 inmates. That's in the state of Ohio. Those incidents have resulted from vulnerabilities including defective inadequate locks, perimeter breaches, surveillance issues, staff assaults, unsecured keys, minimum security housing, and transportation. Modern jail design addresses these vulnerabilities through multi-layers of physical security, electronic surveillance, controlled movement, and redundant security systems. Now, I will say that that does not include, from what I've seen in my research, that does not include walkaways from work details and outside trustees and that sort of stuff. That doesn't include any of that. I don't know what those stats are, but anytime you have inmates who are working outside the facility, that's always going to be a risk. It also doesn't include inmates who have ran from the court rooms, that sort of thing. This is just from facilities in the state of Ohio over the last 10 years.

Thank you. Mr. Seelig.

Let's have a couple quick questions. There's 50 acres out there, and are they going to use the whole 50 acres for the project? No? There might be some room left over to maybe possibly build a homeless shelter. Maybe move the Clark County dog warden's office that is in there a long time so I mean the possibility other uses are going to be considered for the remainder of the property I'd like to put my vote in right now for a homeless shelter I'll help and the other thing is of the 125 point I forget the number million dollars is going to be spent, how much of that money is going to be spent with vendors from within Clark County? Are we going to try our best to do business? I know you put it up for bids and all that. But are we going to try to do business with people from Clark County? You know, some of the businesses here need a shot in the arm as well. And The other thing, you know, services and things like that, garbage collection. I'm sure there's going to be facilities to cook there. My grandmother was a cook for many, many years at Clark County Jail. And I just know they're going to put in a state-of-the-art kitchen out there so they can prepare the food and things right there on site. And I have a million other questions, but I'll go ahead and put them on the website. Thank you.

Thank you. i don't think we have the details sir about like cooking on site and whether we're gonna put a full service kitchen etc um right now we don't cook all of the food there on site we have it catered um Oh, we cook it there?

We have a contract company that comes in, but they use our facility there.

So we will most likely mimic that. Obviously, we'll be looking at the long-term ramifications, how much that costs, et cetera. One of the reasons for having additional land is so that we have the ability not only to expand the jail, but other county complexes. As you said, you have good ideas of other things that could possibly go there. We will certainly, and all of us on the county commission, would rather see the money stay home. But we do have bidding requirements by the state of Ohio, so we still have to follow the law. We have to follow the revised code on how those bids are done and where the money goes. Where we can, we certainly want... things that we buy and services we buy and construction workers who build it to be from Clark County, because of course we all benefit when that happens. Unfortunately, we can't always guarantee that all of that because bids are bids and following the revised code is something definitely necessary for us.

Thank you.

Okay. I have, is it Terry Fraley? Thank you. Either microphone.

I'm all for the new jail. I have questions about why and how you picked the location that you picked where there's lots of boys and girls, young boys and girls, obviously playing soccer right there until late at night. And also then the only public swimming pool in Springfield is right there too. That's my question. I want to know, did you look at where the old mall used to be in Springfield?

There's an existing facility in use there.

Pardon me?

There's a warehouse use facility there that's been bought.

For the whole mall?

The whole area's been.

Okay. Yes, ma'am. I just think that for public safety, I know that there's very few APs, but it only takes one. That's just what I'm saying. And I know it's not for the worst of the prisoners. I understand that, too. But when you're talking about young children, and I know that there's young children that play soccer. Now, I'm not positive about the swimming pool, but I'm sure that there are parents that drop their kids off there, too. That's just my comments.

I can tell you that the thought behind the location of this was to shield the soccer complex and the swimming pool from this. That's why we have shielding. That's why we would have fencing. That's worth them. The access would be in and out off of State Route 72. So we would take every due diligence. And you're right. There is no guarantee. But there also is no guarantee that we're not going to have a train derailment that goes right between the two of them. So, you know, I get your concern. I sympathize with the concern. But we could do that with any site that we would pick across the county. Well, it was just when I looked at it, I thought, well, it doesn't take a better site than for kids.

That's where the kids are. Hopefully they understand. And I would just tell you that one... I'm a grandmother, so... When we first... I'm a grandfather as well. And when the site first came up, when it first hit my brain, the exact first things that I thought was what you just stated. Well, no, about, well, there's a swimming pool there where kids play and there's a soccer complex across the railroad track where kids play. And so, yes, that is the knee-jerk reaction to this, so then we step back and we said, okay, now here's these things that are front and center in our brain. Can we appropriately mitigate that? And does it still work? Well, number one, it's 55 acres. And as you saw in the rendering, we plan to push it further to the north. So we're not gonna put it like right against the splash zone border. The other thing we have to realize that Flash Zone is open from Memorial Day to Labor Day or really close to those. It's only open during the day. And we won't have a direct connection between the two. So I was surprised. Actually, I saw the rendering and I saw a driveway actually coming out onto Eagle City. and and i don't support that right i don't support a driveway i don't support connecting this to eagle city i support connecting it to a state route which is state route 72 and pushing all of the traffic and all of it to that way and so you know when i saw the rendering i'm like nah i but that's a very preliminary drawing and i'm only one person out of three but I don't believe we should be connecting it and making a straight route. We should have fencing up there, which prevents the connection between the two. It prevents the connection across the railroad tracks with the soccer field so that all of us that have kids and grandkids, that those situations don't come into play. And that's not something we have to worry about. So I appreciate your comments. And like I said, I, I shared them. It was the first thing that hit my brain. In fact, I, Within an hour, I was talking with City Commissioner Ricketts and we had to have a long discussion about that before my brain came around that I would actually consider this site. I think with the parameters that we've talked about since then, we have a good opportunity to mitigate those issues. And as the Sheriff said, whatever site we pick in Springfield, there will be issues with it, right? So there's no perfect site And we hear about how close schools are and other things. Well, anywhere else we put it, there are schools in every part of our county and city. There are churches, there are houses, places where kids play, playgrounds. And so, yes, good points. And we hope to be able to mitigate those if we were to move forward on this site.

So there'll be what they call screening, which will be if they could do natural vegetation. And then aside from that, there will be no line of sight. None of the inmates will be able to see to the soccer fields or see to the splash zone. So if we put windows in, they'll be frosted where they can only let sunlight in, but they can't see out. Or it'll just be skylights where they'll be able to see to the sky. That'll be it.

Thank you. One other point of clarification really quick. That drive that is on the rendering to Eagle City is actually just an emergency entrance. It would be gated and nobody would be utilizing that at all. The only reason it would be utilized is if there was a wreck on 72 and they needed to get a fire truck into the facility or something like that. So it would be gated. And we can take that out, but that was discussed and that's why that drawing is on there.

Thank you, ma'am. We can't have people walking in and out or driving in and out of there all the time. That's just not acceptable.

Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Tabitha Randall.

Good evening. I just wanted to begin by saying thank you for this opportunity to address this committee and to serve as a voice for many who share my concerns. I've been around talking to people about this, so I've heard a lot of people's opinion. I know this topic has not been easy to deal with. Dealt with other locations and trying to, you said before, everyone is difficult. I want to start by saying that I understand that Clark County needs a new jail. I'm not here to argue against having a jail. I am asking why this is the best place to put it. This location is surrounded by things that has been mentioned that our community has built for families. We have the soccer complex where children play and families come to watch. We have the water park where families spend their summers. We have families living across the road. I know that it was mentioned that there are no houses in that area. My house is right there, right across the road. There are several houses that I know of. And right across from the vet clinic is a neighborhood. We have the Simon Kenton bike path, which is a historic part of the Springfield history. And I know it said it's going to be rerouted. I do have questions about that and how that will function well because we use that bike path very often and we love it. I know several people have mentioned how much they love that bike path and how often they use it and how we don't have a lot of options for that. I'm a cross country coach and we use it for running as well. There's lots of uses for that and we love it. Like I said, this is used for families, cyclists, travelers, and our community daily. We also have two bed and breakfast locations that are very close to this, Simon Kent Inn and the Colonial Manor, and the Polo Club, all of which thrive on a peaceful, calm environment away from city infrastructure and things like that. These are things we should be protecting when we plan the future of Clark County. At the same time, we have other areas that might be a possibility in Springfield that could be looked at for a project like this. We also need your answer about inmate release. That's something I would like to know about. When someone is released from the jail and does not have transportation, where do they go? Will the county transport that person back downtown? Will transportation be available or will people simply be released from the jail at this location? That is an important question when we are talking about an area where children are playing soccer, families are riding bikes, and people are visiting a water park or relaxing at getaway locations like the B&Bs. There's another issue we should not ignore. A jail does not only bring inmates to an area, it brings attorneys, visitors, people picking up inmates, employees, deliveries, law enforcement, traffic, and other daily activity. That does not mean every person visiting a jail is dangerous. Of course they aren't. But it does mean a jail changes the traffic and the use of the area around it. That's probably one of my biggest concerns is the changing of the area and kind of the environment that is there on people kind of like I mentioned and recreational.

Your three minute time is up, but please stay there because I know there's several answers that we can answer to some of your questions.

Go ahead. Inmate release. Inmate release, yeah.

That's fine. I mean, I'm not trying, we're just trying to give everybody a chance to speak. So that's the only reason for any kind of limit. That's fine. That's fine. The goal is to just have some structure so everybody can speak tonight. So it's not to silence people at all. You want to go ahead?

Yes. let me see where we should ask whether this um but oh yeah so it changes the the environment the area we should ask whether that type of development belongs next to an area that has already been built around recreation children families and outdoor activity this is a decision that could shape this part of park county for generations But if there is another location that meets the county's needs without placing this facility besides major family and recreational areas, we owe it to this community to seriously consider it before making a permanent decision. I'm definitely not saying no new jail. We are saying build the jail where it makes sense. Protect the places where our children play. Our families gather in our community has invested in its future. um i did start a petition and at this moment it started a few days ago so not very long ago we have 250 signatures i just wanted to make you aware of that and the other question i had was has the land already been purchased is this still a question that is possible to change or is this already land's not been purchased okay That is all I have to say as far as...

I think what the county administrator was saying, and I don't want to speak for Ms. Jenny, but they do need to build a jail. They're going to move forward with building a jail. We just need to find the ideal location.

Right.

Is that good?

And I'm not saying... No, that's all I had to say. I did... If they have answers about the inmate being released, I would like...

I can address the inmate release. We've looked at this extensively. We did with the 72 South location as well. We have a at this because we don't have a facility yet. We have a handshake agreement. We've had talks with a transportation company that will give an inmate being released from the Clark County facility a right anywhere they need to go within Clark County. So that's taken care of. Now, with that being said, people who are released from the jail are no longer in the custody of the county. So if they want to walk, they can walk. But I can tell you the access to come in and out will be out on State Route 72. So it's not going to be very good to walk down State Route 72. We will do everything we do to encourage them to get a ride or take advantage of one of our rides. They will not be able to get down any sort of driveway to get out to Eagle City, anywhere near the soccer complex or splash zone. That will not be accessible to them upon release. So if they leave on foot, they would have to go out and stay around 72, which, you know, that's a divided highway, and we don't want people walking down there, so we're going to do everything we can to make sure people either have their own rides or we provide a ride for them out of them.

Can we wait till there's a time to speak? Thank you.

other other we just want to control the meetings everybody's talking about the traffic and i just want to address that it's one of the reasons why we have specifically looked at the two sites that have actually come to the public so far have all been on state routes because there's a reason why it's a state route because it's a higher traffic it's a higher volume traffic um designed for the traffic flow um since you live there you know that um about 3.30 or so when Navistar lets out, there's lots of traffic. We're not talking about anywhere near the volume of traffic that International has put out on that road or which is unfortunately going to be slowing down a little bit for a while. But then Rochelle could have two or three times the number of people out there working that would be affecting 72. The number of people that would be associated with this would be infinitesimal compared to what we've seen from an international harvester or a Rochelle in the future. So traffic, that's why obviously we'd still have to do a traffic study, right? That's part of the process. It's part of the due diligence. But I think you're going to find that very low impact on a divided state route at that point.

I think that's all my questions right now.

Thank you.

Dave Sautter?

Thanks for the time to speak. I am a member of the... Are you both Dave Sauter? That's me.

I'm Steve Souther. Okay.

Steve, I said Dave Sauter, but Steve Souther is next. That's all right. Can I have my 20 seconds back? Thanks for the time to speak. I'm from Terracella. How many of us are from Terracella neighborhood? So you'll see there's some interest, obviously, and concern. You've addressed many, many things, but I want to get three questions out. One is how will the elimination of the parks and recreation, the rangers, affect the safety of the bike path? Number two, how is it that we're going from 200 to 465? What's behind that? The release has already been covered. And third, when do we get to see all 30 sites?

So that was something that we were talking about. 30 sites were considered from what I understand the sheriff has explained to us. And that means they could have been just spending conversation. Not every site. I mean, some of the sites I believe they discussed were like, that's never going to work. I mean, it just could never have worked. Whether it was in a floodplain or whether it was in an area, whether it's completely and is accessible for the safety of the entire county. So those I know, if you guys want to add to that, that's fine. But I asked the same thing and yeah.

So in relation to the sites, it's our understanding and our legal can advise. But if we don't have permission or control over the site, it's not something we can publicly discuss. It's protected under the law. And that's why that's why discussions for land acquisition is done under executive session. So I can answer the 200 to 465. So I started at the jail in 1997. When I started the jail, the jail was already overcrowded. So that was, you know, 29 years ago. So for the last 29 years, that jail has been overcapacitated. We take just the worst of the worst in the jail right now. So the majority of people that should see the inside of a jail cell generally don't here because of overcrowding problems. DLZ, there's actually a formula. I don't know what it is. Someone who's a lot smarter than me knows how to calculate that. That's why we hired DLZ. DLZ looked at what our population is, what our population projections are, how many we have in the jail, what our crime trends are, and how many we've refused at the door, how many get ordered in, that sort of stuff. And they've come up with an estimate. And this is a middle-of-the-road estimate. So they gave us three options. They told us that, like, I can't remember the exact numbers, but it's all in the study, but there's actually three numbers. So it was, I'm just going to use some random, like 300 was the lowest we could go. 465 was middle of the road, and then the top was 550 beds. Their projection is 465 beds will sustain us in this county for the next 30 to 40 years before we would have to entertain expansion again.

and the Rangers.

Sorry. I would just add to that that jails are not built or designed to be operated at 100% capacity. like our roads are not built designed for 100 capacity so in a jail you typically and as you said we're not able to segment the prisoners typically you have three groups you have the mental the people with mental health needs the people with substance abuse needs and then the true hardened criminals that are awaiting trial for a felony and they need to be in jail, but they need to be segmented. They should not be mixed with those other inmates. We should have three segments within the jail and we don't typically mix those people. Unfortunately, right now we are mixing them and it's not best practice. And so if we look at that, being able to operate at 80% capacity gives you fluctuation between the three different segments, because you don't know exactly how many from each are going to happen. So we wouldn't expect to open this jail and have 456 beds filled. That's not our intention. Our intention is to build the appropriate size jail. And you're probably going to see initially up to 300, then you're going to see between 300 and 350. If you ask our judges here in town, and I see this on social media all the time, where people are saying, well, the judges are just letting people go. They're just slapping them on the hand. They don't even see jail time. Well, that's because there's no place to put the people. I mean, we're taking this because public safety is really first and foremost our jobs as county commissioners. people that need some correction, just like our kids sometimes need some correction. There are adults that need that. And we're not able to properly do that here in Clark County. We have people that are police officers arrest them committing a crime. They go down to the jail, they get booked in, they get released. And the same night a different set or the same police officers arrest the person at a different location doing a similar crime and they still don't see the inside of a jail. They get released again because there's no place to put them. That's not a community I want to live in. I want a community and I want a community where our judges feel like they're able to do justice. And right now we don't have that. And that's very disturbing. It's the reason I ran for this office is because I feel like our public deserves better than what we're giving them now. And so we've got to figure out how to do this. It'd be a lot easier to not have a new jail for everybody involved. You guys, us, except for the courts, the law enforcement that are working double time to arrest the same person twice in the same night, and the judicial system, which doesn't work here because we haven't given them the tools. As the sheriff has been known to say many times, the weakest link in our judicial system in Clark County right now is the capacity at the jail.

Thanks for clarifying the 200 to 400 plus.

Your question about the rangers. Yeah. I don't know that we can address that particularly. That was unfortunately a budget cut that was necessary from the park system. We passed the levy for them, but unfortunately the levy we needed to pass, which was an increase in taxes, which is not a good time to be asking for an increase in taxes. And so they went for a renewal of, which wasn't even enough to do the services because everything's more expensive for the park district, just like it is for you and I. And therefore, they can't even maintain and do all the stuff they were doing because there's just not enough money.

Thank you. I can tell you, in regards to the rangers, I don't know how often they were up there, how often they checked that. But by putting a public safety building up there, you're moving 130-plus deputy sheriffs to that area that will be there every single day.

Thank you all. Thank you. Now, Steve Souther.

First of all, I'd like to thank the council, sheriff, and commissioners for meeting with us. We get to ask some questions. That's our democratic process. I just want everybody to know that I worked in this county right alongside the sheriff. as a law enforcement officer. I was a Sergeant Ranger for the Park District when I retired in 22. The sheriff is duly elected. One of his primary jobs is to facilitate a jail. And what I saw tonight and the materials that he's provided us, the sheriff is right on. We need a new jail, folks. I've taken bad guys to that jail. And there were some times they were released because there was no room. So I think everybody in this room is convinced we need a new jail. I live at 120 Thomason Trail. in carosella uh community i've been asked by the community sheriff come up and ask some questions um is that property going to maintain a um a township uh or is it going to get annexed into the city it's already already in the city the property all the land is it's not in the township no it is okay so the city ems and fire will be providing services there won't affect our fire service okay cool um people are really concerned uh that it is a divided highway it's not built or designed for any pedestrian traffic um we appreciate hearing today that you're not going to release them and have them go down where the water park is and all that stuff But we're concerned where they're going to go on a divided highway. And we're right across the street. We have no connecting sidewalks into the city. All we have is the bike trail. Just about every one of the people in Paracel uses the bike trail. They're concerned that they're going to run into these folks and their endeavors. I know you're going to do everything you can to get them to have someone come and get them and everything. But there are those folks that don't. And they get pushed out the door and really nothing. No one knows what happens to them. We have a considerable amount of homeless already on the bike trail. I don't know if you folks down below know this, but In your area where you're going to be building, you have a lot of commute right there for those folks to get into the city. They get right on the road that goes into the Walmart net and come back out, go right back out there. So there would have to be something done for the bike trail in that area. There is a big concern about the swimming park and the soccer field in my community because they have grandchildren or their own children. going to those places. So that's what we want the commissioners to do, is to look this over. We did know the 30 possible locations. That was in our mind, guys. We're asking you to please do your due diligence in determining and picking the right place. That's all I have to say.

And I didn't add this earlier, just so you know, my own daughter works at Splash Zone, and she's up there many days a week throughout the summer so i'm yes so i am very aware of splash zone and how that works and the kids that are there and the ages of the kids and the supervision issues etc so chair of clark sir um we all understand that

WE ARE TRYING TO PICK THE ABSOLUTE BEST PLACE WE CAN. I'M SURE WE'VE ALL THOUGHT OF THE SAME SCENARIOS OVER AS WELL AS COMMUNITY. WOULD THIS BE AN UPGRADE? BECAUSE JUST SITTING HERE, THERE'S A LOT OF YEAR ROUND THINGS GOING ON RIGHT HERE WHERE THE CURRENT JAIL IS. YOU HAVE THE YMCA. THAT'S PROBABLY OPEN UNTIL ABOUT 9 OR 10 O'CLOCK. A LOT OF KIDS BE AROUND THERE. the U Media after school program, which is open. And that's grades, that's kids from grades four all the way through 12 that are releasing out of there about 7.30, 8 o'clock. You also have Giza that has their events that is connected to that. You have Wittenberg University that has a nightlight for our kids. And we are trying to get Wittenberg to really thrive and regrow again. That's right up the road as well. You also have Hayward, and now the middle school sports will be playing at the Dome, and those games are at night. And that's just not even to mention when you release, you don't have the ride program now, right? No, I have the ride program. And so those prisoners, if they choose to walk, they are hitting neighborhoods everywhere out of here. So is it safe to say that where we're going may not be the best spot? But it's definitely an upgrade for the safety of our youth and our community as a whole, as well as even our intermediate and our postgraduate kids that are coming from out of town and may not know where they're at, hanging out at Station 1, and people are getting releases. It's safe to say that this is an... A dramatic upgrade or a slight upgrade?

I think as long as we do our due diligence to assure that we have proper isolation and screening and the facility is built correctly, it would be a significant upgrade.

Thank you.

Thank you. Rick Broderick.

Thank you, Rick.

Mark Schultz.

everyone here appreciates the presentation. Sheriff Clark is very well presented there. And most of the people I think here are not against having a new jail. I think we all realize we need that. It's just we're here for the picking of the site. And a couple of my questions have already been answered and they were well answered. But what happened to the South Limestones site that was originally I know the people down there didn't want it down there either, but I thought one of the criteria was to have it close to interstate highways and 70 and 72. So I was just curious what happened to that site or why we went cold on that site.

I think that that site was connected to the tax levy that did not pass for some that were analyzing it. Not everybody at this table would have analyzed it in the same way, but the tax levy didn't pass to support at the same time when we were looking at that site, when the county and the city were looking at that site. There was also, I think, concern about location there being directly off of I-70 and a potential future development opportunity in that location. There was, I'm trying to remember from what I heard from other residents, that we would be the jail exit if it was there. There was concerns that, you know, why would you want to jail directly right off of 70 and 72 to go there? It was an ideal location for the sheriff because it was quick access to 70 and probably preferred location, to be honest. Quick access to 70. I think there was also concern that it could be future development for houses there. I'm not saying there is anything. There's not right now. And the property did... I drove out there and looked at it as well, is that it did butt up to directly several folks' backyard. Not hundreds of people, but several folks. So those are concerns that came up the last time. We did identify this property with the county and said that this could be a potential site. and just offered it as an opportunity. And while it wasn't maybe number one for sheriff, it was a strong two because of the access to the highway at 68 now to the west side. That's really the focus as to how quick can the sheriff's department get to the west side of the county. So those are some answers. There was others, but that was why. Thank you for that answer.

I looked at some other, went on the GIS website, looked at other 50-acre sites around Clark County that have public utilities, and there are not many. But the one that I did see that seemed like a good candidate, and I don't know if this was considered, was the old Showboat Theater property on Route 40 there east of Bird Road. That's a scruffy, overgrown property that's owned by somebody else. It's not owned by the city, of course. But that's more of a square-shaped parcel than this long, skinny, green, farmed piece of ground that we're discussing about taking up. So there's utilities there. I know it's right across from the Melody Park site.

I would just say, because there was another location being considered in that area that can't be brought up, but access to the highway, you have to go through Harmony and out and around, I think travel time to the west side of the community and also going through Springfield. And it's not because we wouldn't want that, but it's just a hindrance for deputies to be able to respond to the county in a safe and quick way. I think that's one of the reasons why maybe that location would not have been considered, but That's what I heard when we would bring up some other locations and how directly they were located to highways. Thank you. Janet Zorns.

And at Zorn's, thank you for having me here and allowing me to speak. I'm a little nervous, but I'm a little confused by the 30 sites that you chose and you picked from and why we can't find out any information about those. I'm just curious.

There's laws that prohibit us discussing in public without having the consent of the property owner.

So they were not acquired properties. So let's say your house would be one of the sites that you would be approached to in the future. And you had 50 acres and you had a big farm. They could not say publicly, hey, we looked at X, Y, Z address because it's your house. And you would not want that information shared publicly, even if it was just it's. And when they say when they're saying 30 sites, these are thoughts and considerations around a roundtable of ideas of where can we put a jail in Clark County? So that's why those from my understanding, that's why those sites cannot be shared.

All of the other sites are.

under that circumstance that we can't find out any criteria why how you graded them why you didn't move forward with them I don't think all of the sites are that so what I can tell you is we looked at a lot of brownfields in fact we looked at we looked at every brownfield in the city of Springfield that was 10 plus acres and I'll tell you there aren't very many of them to see if it met the criteria for the access to be able to get to... So, for instance, a couple of years ago, and this is not a secret, so I'm not divulging anything. I shouldn't. The Kenton and Burt site, when the former sheriff was still in office, was one of those sites, for instance. Owned by the city. Owned by the city. We had control over that site. There's residential... directly across the street. I mean, not across a divided highway plus another access road. It is right there. And then go to, go to the sheriff and say, well, sure. How do you get out of, how do you get off of Kenton street to get to route 40 West or 70 West or 68 North, um, very very difficult access because it's in a residential neighborhood i mean it's directly in a residential neighborhood we looked at a another brownfield it wasn't quite 10 acres but we were looking at acquiring a different additional land around it to make it what we needed to do to build build this single story facility on the west side same thing it's It's right in a residential neighborhood, and we had no way to get out of the residential neighborhood onto a state route to be able to go north, south, east, or west. So, I mean, if you do what I did, and probably what Mr. Scholl did as well, take an overhead map of Springfield and the incorporated areas and look for those 10 acres, I mean, look for the green fields and brown fields and say, where are they? And then put these parameters into those. Now, there are other properties that might be contiguous to the city now where we actually made offers and talked to folks. Those are the ones that are specifically protected that we're not able to talk more about.

Okay, so the other 30 options were not an option if they were related to somebody that was going to sell the property and they chose not.

I don't understand what you just said. Can you say that again?

So you're saying that if it was my house... And I said, no, I'm not selling my field. You're saying these other 30 options were under that situation where somebody personally owned that and said, no, I'm not selling it.

That was one of the things that did happen. There were several sites that we looked at and had interest in that the property owner said, I'm not. I'm not even going to price it to you. I'm not going to sell it. Well, I understand that, but you're saying all 30 of them.

I think the word option is really the wrong word to use. Because options would have been, they were there, and then they're gone. And Commissioner Taggart brought that up. That's a good point. There weren't really options. There were considerations around a roundtable, thinking, should we approach that spot for a future jail site? It was never an option. except the Beacon Street and Kent and Burt, I mean, and the one we discussed already on South 72. So it's not like we had that they were discussing options and then those went away. They were just, you know, it starts with a roundtable discussion. Everything that you start has to just start with discussion. So I think that option is a stronger word than we should use. They were considered but quickly dismissed because of just was never going to work. Some were quickly and some were months. Some there's some due diligence. It's like a brainstorm. You just kind of get everybody together.

Some took months to get to the due diligence where we... we either the people wouldn't sell or there were environmental concerns or there was a cost was a 150 year old no I'm sorry what 200 almost 200 year old family cemetery right in the middle of the plot in on the 20 acre plot that we couldn't I mean those that's the kind of work that we've been doing for the last year and a half to try to identify the correct location

Can I address the brownfield? Do you know what a brownfield is? Okay. I mean, to clean up a brownfield also could cost millions of dollars just to clean up the dirt. So that enters into the cost of something, too, just to even get the site ready.

Thank you.

So my second question is, what was this piece of land purchased by the City of Springfield be used for initially?

That was for wellfield protection. It was to make sure that they had control of that land because the wellfield is just to the west of there and the water treatment plant is just south on Eagle City Road. And it was part of their wellfield protection plan. That's why the city owned the property to begin with. And I'm not with the city, but I was the health commissioner at the time. So that's why I happen to know that. Fast experience.

And I have another question. So right at Willow Road and 72 where the zoning was changed for that trucking company to come in and they have not come in yet. And then they bought all of that Wheeler property. So we really don't know what kind of traffic is going to be on 72 moving forward. In addition to the jail, we really don't know what that company is bringing in, do we yet?

You mean the Navistar plant? No. That's the bigger one. I mean, that's thousands of jobs.

No, because I went to the zoning and we tried to not get it rezoned and they passed it for semis to come in, possibly a truck stop, you know, and they were going to do staging.

No, it was not zoned for a truck stop. It was only going to be for trucks to be dropped off.

So under the classification of the new zoning, it was restricted what he could put there?

Yeah, they wouldn't be able to put a truck stop there.

No, okay.

Also, it's not big enough for a truck stop.

Since it looks like he's purchased all that land that Wheeler owns.

I suspect that the best possibility of that moving forward would be something to do with the new Rochelle plant that's taking over for international. But the traffic that's going to come from those, if we really do see 2,000, 3,000, 5,000 jobs there, what we're talking about with this is pales in comparison to that. I mean, it would be infinitesimal.

And if you wanted to reach out to our economic development team, they're the ones that kind of know, typically know what's going on with the properties like that. They're not here tonight to answer that question, and we're not tied in that tight to know what's happening there. Our team may know. There might have been some conversation. I don't know, but we potentially could get you some answers on that.

Okay, and the last thing is about children. I personally know people that are in prison because they have armed children. And I know personally that if they get out, that's going to be their target again. And that's my biggest concern. Just from the splash zone, and I know your daughter works there, but you guys don't live over there, right?

No.

No. But, you know, you have kids over there and like he said, you know, there's kids downtown too. But when you're walking and it's a bike path and it's not a well-lit city street, that's different when you can just snatch up a kid.

Thank you. Connie Kaler. Thank you, ma'am. Mark Massey. You have anything to say though, Connie? We're going until eight o'clock. I threw the three o'clock thing away, three minute thing away. Oh, you want to say something? Go ahead, Mr. Messick. Okay.

Thank you for allowing me to do this. And I want to thank all the law enforcement for keeping us safe. Thank you, Sheriff Clark. And I had a, my great grandfather was a sheriff in Greenfield, Ohio. I had a cousin that retired from London Police Department. She was a police chief and also had a cousin who was sheriff's deputy and a detective for the sheriff's department here. Yeah, I had some stats to bring up, but I know you know these very well. The THE CURRENT JAIL BUILT IN 1980, IT ORIGINAL COST 8.2 MILLION, OF COURSE, AND THEN THE PROPOSED JAIL, 85 TO 100 MILLION, I GUESS IT WAS UP TO 125 MILLION FOR CONSTRUCTION COST. And then the current jail sets on just less than two acres. And now we're going to 50 acres. And I know things grow and that kind of thing. But jail size, of course, 92,000 square feet. And then when you add the office at Springview, you got like 95,300 square feet. The new jail... It's going to be 130 to 140,000 square feet. And that'll combine the sheriff office, I guess. The bed capacity, 167 beds currently. And then it could be 450 beds at the new proposal, I guess. Some other stats. In 1980, Springfield had 72.5 thousand people. And with Clark County combined, you got 150,236 in all of Clark County. Springfield now has 58,289 residents, where all of Clark County has 136. just over 136,000 residents. So I'm not against building a new jail, but I'm trying to wrap my head around why the jail needs to be so much bigger. And are we having pay to stay beds in this jail? Or not?

That's not our intent. I'm sorry? Pay to stay for the inmates?

Or outside jurisdictions?

I mean, that's something we can entertain. We currently don't have any outside contracts because I don't have the room for it.

Yeah, I know currently, but like I should have said, in the new proposed jail, would you have pay to stay?

There's been no direct discussions of that. We could, but there's been no direct discussions.

It's not my intention as a commissioner to build a jail so that someone else's inmates can come stay here. That doesn't make any sense to me. Why would we put the capital cost into building a building so that somebody else could pay us a little bit of money per month? I'm really not interested in that.

I'm glad to hear that because I saw where Claremont, Medina, and Marion County's had that implemented and they just did away with it because it was financially and it was more trouble than it was worth. So I'm glad you're being good stewards there. So I too have a problem with, I have a sign business here in Springfield. I weave in and out of the city and county all the time. I know probably more streets than most people. But I like I know you mentioned the brownfield. And I know the city has gotten the city and county has gotten money to to take care of the cleanup. I don't know. I know some some of that takes a while to get get moving. But I mean, you can look up on the internet, you guys have it. I'm not saying that it, I know there's other things that you say there's, um, access to the highway and stuff. Well, for 40 years, we've been doing it where we're at. So it's like, I, you know what I mean? I just want to, when I make a sign, I want to leave that customer with something better than they had and something that is going to be look good. So, I look at, when I drive around the city, it's just tough for me to see all the brownfields. And like Clark County has, well, no, the city limits have over 4,000 vacant lots. Now, I know you can't build a jail with less than an acre lot. And I know this is not you guys' fault. You guys inherited a lot of this because... Yes, Frank Bowles had boomed down and then unfortunately things turned and I appreciate what you guys are doing. But I just hope the one thing that we look at the, okay, with the size of the city reducing is like, well, the crime obviously has gotten worse. So we need to be addressing that more, you know, addressing the crime to build a new jail.

If we don't have a place to put people to penalize them for their crimes, we're going to have an increase in crime over time, period. So you already agreed to it. You want a new jail? A lot of people want a new jail. We're just talking tonight where we're putting it. I think we've got all your comments. Thank you, Mr. Massey.

All right, thank you.

Satish, do you want to speak? Go ahead. Well, I'm just, the time you take, we're going to 8 o'clock.

We have 30 minutes left. I have to say that I'm not speaking for a politician. I'm not speaking for a political campaign, nor a political party at this time. I'm strictly speaking for myself. I'm gonna just throw out some things to you and I get my information from different places than you guys do and you know that. I'm gonna start with 2007 when the National Trails was first built. That was supposed to be a huge recreational facility and bring everybody in and that's why you closed the pool and you were gonna have the bus stop and everybody's gonna be happy and everything was gonna move out there. So what happened to the rest of that? Because that's what that 50 acres was supposed to be for. That whole area was supposed to be developed for um recreation and everybody had a fit that it was moving out of the city and now we've got people building stuff in the city that are going to be recreational so a lot a lot of problems with trust gotta tell you no that's just one of the things but that was built for that and it never got completed and now you're going to put a jail there in 2007 if there was a jail on that property would you have built the splash pad there and the national trails soccer place that have been built if the jail was already in existence i don't think so I see that we've started with Warren County. The whole southwest area of Ohio is going to have all of these jails. It's going to happen, every county. We know that. And Warren County started, and that's where everybody looked at, and they were in Greene County, and now we're up here for Clark County. So the way the others have worked is the increments are going to be, we're going to pay for this over the next 30 years through some type of tax level. So you're spreading it out over 30 years. But my concern for that part is you're going to have homeowner flight because I guarantee all these people right here don't put their house up for sale. And there goes their homeowner values. And there goes more people that are going to have to be paying taxes. But those people are these people are going to move. They're not going to stay here. We talk a little bit about you're going to have a jail, but also why do we need a helipad? There's no helipad on that design. Not on this design, but it's coming up in future plans.

It sounds cool, but I don't think we have one.

Okay. We don't have a helicopter. I'm going to hold you to that. I'm going to hold you to that.

How about a short takeoff runway airplane?

Just telling you.

We definitely will have that.

So as this goes on, you get the jail and then you're going to move the courts out there. So you'll have like the domestic court and all those courts will be moved out there then?

They're not moving out there.

Never? Never.

Well, they just spent $6 million on the downtown Common Police Court building. And then we have a long-time lease for the municipal court building. And the judges aren't here, and I'm not going to speak for them, but it's my understanding they're not moving.

There's nothing to move. I just wanted everybody's moving. That's everybody's plan. That's how this big Southwest Ohio plan is working. I want to ask about the yard time. You said no yard time ever, but there are inmates that go out, pick up trash, and nothing you can do about it if they run off. Are we going to allow them to pick up trash in that area or are we going to stick to the highways where they're mostly at now? Will that be changing? It's great that you're having treatment programming and medical facility. I'd love you to have a kitchen, but when you have all of those things in this facility, I would rather you hire employees instead of contracting with some banquet facility out of Dayton that services 12,000 different acres. I have someone said earlier, was it you, Terry? Or somebody said they want to keep things in Clark County because we need to keep that going. We need to keep people in Clark County and keep them employed. Two words that kind of just like send up red flags. You're going to minimize community impact on release. So you're telling me and you keep trying to say that they're not walking, they're not going to go that way. But hand to God, you release people 24 hours a day. You just said, I have no control over where they go. But you can't walk down 72. I see people walking down 72 every day. I live there.

I never said you couldn't walk down 72. I just said it wasn't very smart to walk down 72.

Okay, but they're going to go that way. And they're free adults to do as they please. Yeah, I'm not complaining. I'm just telling you.

All we can do is offer the services to them.

Yeah, I understand what you're saying, but I understand what they're saying because they know where the first place these people are going to go is going to be, and it's going to be in their backyard. So that's part of that. And then you keep saying, well, I heard the lady earlier say, we're going to have a final financing review strategy on how we're going to pay for it. so i want to know what federal grants that you have applied for to pay for that because i don't want my taxes going up again my taxes are going to go up because i live in warfield township you're putting in four hundred thousand dollar homes that's not community homes for people that live here and work here and are white collar people that's to bring in people out of our area from columbus and this that's everything you hear when you go to these meetings. So my taxes are going to go up because I live on the other side of the property where the homes are older, but my taxes will still go up and be based on that.

Okay. Thank you, Satish. I think you've had plenty of comments. Any answers? Well, I mean, to be fair, you've made some assumptions and you've got to say all of them and you're free to do that, but we just don't, I'm sure you do. There's no doubt in my mind. Thank you. Okay. Rex Nassel. I'm sorry. I couldn't, I couldn't read the last.

That's German for nail. So it's Nagel. Thank you. Go ahead, sir. I just want to thank everybody for their time. Everybody coming out here listening for all this. Just wanted to iterate on 660 feet. That is the proximity to the front door of the first home to this jail's barriers. 660 feet. That is one to two minutes walking. You can run that in 30 seconds. That is how close danger will be to this neighborhood. I want everyone here to understand that. These people that get out of jail are repeat offenders. Not every single one of them, but a lot of them. You all need to be worried about this getting into your backyards. Would you want this for your neighbors? I'm asking you guys to please reconsider this site. A lot of us have put a lot of valuable time, effort, money into our homes. We do not want to see those property values drop. I'm just, like I said, I'm just very, very concerned about how close proximity this is. These people are released. They walk the streets. You have no control. If they want to take a car ride, they will walk through your neighborhoods. They will scout your property. They will look for your children. The pedophiles will, and the rapists will look at your wives. Please reconsider this site. 70% of these voters oppose taxing a new jail. I'm not opposed to a new jail at all. I think the answer could be in a different location. I think the location should be central to this city. The reason I'm asking for that is because if you have something central inside this city, you're taking away from the north end. North end values where a lot of your property values are in this town. When people realize this trouble is coming to their neighborhood, it's going to be a fire sale up there, guys. You're going to lose a lot. The North End is going to turn into a less desirable neighborhood to live in. The crime rates will go up. It's statistically proven that when property values drop, which they will because good people will leave, that crimes will go up. So with that, I think a central location would be very good for us. Maybe reconsider talking to the taxpayers about if you do propose something downtown.

So would you be okay with like a .75 sales tax right off the bat to fund a $150 million jail downtown Springfield?

If you wanted to build a $200 million jail.

I'm saying this is something that I even brought up in conversation to the commissioners. Have the option or throw the tax back on and say it could be downtown. yes is is just a thought because uh the reason why it's not we need to it's going vertical is going to cost also taxpayers three million more dollars a year so you're talking about a lot more expenses going vertical the city's not opposed to having it centrally located it's just the fact that it is not feasible to stack a jail to stack it safely to have a high rise what i'm talking about so I'm kind of just, I'm not necessarily arguing. I understand what your concerns are. And my daughter works at Splash Zone too. So I'm just saying, I understand what your concerns. I have five kids. I hear your concerns, okay? They're my concerns. And the number one concern I have is what we're talking about is inmate release. From the very beginning, that's what we've been talking about. When we looked at this site, I think this is a site that is most most not visible from the road, okay? I know it's your houses, I'm not saying anything, but I think it's also the safest jail that we're going to build. You stack a jail, it's going to cost so many millions more dollars, and you may not feel the effects, but in 30 years, they're going to feel the effects when we can't afford services in Clark County. I think that's something that you should ask us taxpayers, honestly.

Honestly, I would feel a lot more comfortable if you raised our taxes to put this jail back downtown. Keep it downtown, build a high rise. I will personally vote yes on your ballot for that.

Well, I don't have that decision, but I did want to pose that question because that was one of my, in our roundtable discussions, I'm like, well, what if you just put a higher tax out there for a downtown jail to see what would happen? And so I'm just saying, I'm not saying that's going to happen. I'm just like, I threw it out there. It's like, because the city's not keeping it from being downtown. And I know that it's just ideally for the sheriff to serve the entire county efficiently, he needs better access to the highway. And if you looked at that, you would agree with that. But anyway, that's just a thought. We are talking and sharing thoughts.

One other point, though, about proximity is that is very close to the northern county border. So if you need to get to other locations within the county, why are you picking so far north?

It's directly right at 72 and 334 to 68, straight out to 70 and to the west side. How quick, Sheriff? I know you timed it already. It's fairly quick to get to the west side from that location. I haven't done the math.

All right. So, yes. So basically, though, the proximity, though, is another question because you're bringing up it's going to be on the north end of town, but that's also the north end of city limits. So you're taking resources away. So Springfield City Police, these people walk west, east, north. Springfield City Police don't have jurisdiction. That's going to fall on you, Sheriff. Are you planning on hiring more deputies to handle this?

The area to the north, we covered that already. That's already one of my primary jurisdictions.

I understand, but I'm saying you're going to have less help. Springfield City will not help you when these inmates break out or when they commit crimes on their way home. Are you going to have more deputies hired?

The plan is to keep staffing as static as possible. That's the benefit of building a horizontal facility, not having to increase staffing and increase overall operating costs to the public.

But your points are well taken, and I would tell you that... These are the exact same arguments that we had on the Route 72 south site, except the houses were closer than the 660 feet.

They were closer than 660 feet?

They were like 60 feet. No. 150? They were touching the property line. Yeah, touching the property line. back of their property abutted.

So 600 feet isn't a far distance for you guys. Like that's a far distance. Like is what you're trying to, I don't want to compare. We're not minimizing your concerns. Really not. I'm not.

I'm trying to tell you that, that your concerns are the same valid concerns that other neighborhoods and other neighbors have had on other locations that we've looked at. So you, you do have valid concerns and we have heard them express multiple times that from other locations as well. So I do appreciate them. And the actual footage was something that I had not calculated yet, but I do appreciate doing that.

Yeah. So the last question that I want to make sure you guys address is basically, The city's dealing with that distance. Man, the thought just slipped out of my mind.

I'm sorry. You're far too young to have that happen.

No, I'm older than I look. I'm starting to get gray hairs, especially thinking about this jail. But, yeah, with city proximity and resources being shared, I am just curious, like, will there, like, I know you answered this question, but I kind of want a more direct answer to it. Will you hire more deputies? Like, will there be budget for that?

I'm always interested in hiring more deputies. To say if there's more budget, I don't control the budget. The budget's set by the commission. We negotiate that annually. To say where my budget's going to be in three years when we open this facility, I don't have a crystal ball. I couldn't tell you where my budget's going to be. But I'm always interested in hiring more deputies.

I don't have a crystal ball either, but I can tell you that I do not believe, unless there's some big changes in Clark County that I don't know that are going to happen, I don't see us having a budget to expand. And that's where we put the jail on 72 south. on 72 North, whether we put it downtown, we don't have a budget, especially since we don't have a tax levy to help us pay for the jail. We're actually gonna have less of a budget moving forward because we're gonna have to divert It looks like $6.6 million a year to figure out how to pay the debt service to build it. Gotcha.

The other question I had finally popped back in my mind, and that was comparing our city to other cities that have kind of, like I said, I brought up earlier that North End property values will drop because of this. People will move that can introduce the possibility of crime moving into those neighborhoods. Have you guys looked into other studies and other cities kind of like Inglewood, Trotwood? There's lots of cities around like look around Dayton, for instance. A lot of those cities used to be great. And I honestly wouldn't walk them. there's some there's some areas that really scare me when i go out that way i am worried that if the property values drop too much in this city it could hurt this city overall i like springfield i've been a resident here for 40 years i love this city i don't want to see one good area kind of deteriorate the rest of the city

So I haven't done an extensive amount of research on what you're specifically asking, but down in Warren County, their jail, not the prison, the jail, it was built relatively recently. So I got on the auditor's website down there, just kind of picked around some houses and looked at the value of them, which I know you know, what the auditor says. We can argue about how accurate that actually is, but just looking, that's the only information that I could go by. So I got on that website and clicked around because it's very close to residential. There was no decrease in property values that I could find, maybe a house here or there, but the majority of the houses were increasing property value just like everybody else's is around the state. And I even Googled it. I don't know if anybody's ever Googled, like, you know, will my property taxes be affected by a local jail? And it says... know sometimes there's some perception that it's unsafe but if you also google is it you know how safe is it around a community jail it actually says it's very safe because of the increased police presence and i'm i'm not the long so that's why i was kind of googling it just to see what google had to say um but i also am curious to like what's the crime rate downtown like what do we see when you're releasing inmates now yeah that would be a city question city pd question i don't have the crime rate

I know we have a pretty vibrant downtown. We have lots of events downtown and our jails right here. And all the people that come down to on September 12th, there's going to be three major events going on downtown. There'll be thousands of people between the park and downtown area, and the jail's going to be right there. and the inmates do not come out and walk through the crowds and you know it just doesn't so it's happened for years again i don't want anybody to think that their concerns are being minimized whatsoever but a lot of these thoughts have happened and we've been talking about it i'm not saying this is going to be the highest and best answer but i'm just telling you it's all similar concerns i need to let people speak because we are 13 minutes from stopping this meeting

Absolutely. I just want to thank the deputies, city PD, all you guys for your time.

Thank you. Let's try to keep our comments to two to three minutes so we can let this many people speak.

First of all, I'm in favor of a new jail, but I'm also concerned about the costs. You gave all these figures how much it's going to cost. I would like to see a more breakdown of even though you don't have a contract yet to see where this is coming. You're going from 160 some inmates a day to possibly 400 some a day. So you said you weren't going to be hiring any extra deputies to do that. But my other concern is what about the courts? Are the judges, the bailiffs and the clerical people? Are we going to have to hire more people? since they're getting a higher caseload. I'm all about the cost. And I think this is too expensive. So let's cut it.

It is too expensive. You are right about that.

You need to cut some things out of it. And let's look at the itemized things. What's your question?

Thank you. Well, no, you asked about the caseload in the courts. the caseload is going to be the same for the court. They're still seeing these people, except there's no place to put them. So instead of the judge seeing the person and having them visit our county jail for three months or six months, they see them and then they have to release them on probation or something like that or parole because there is no place to put them. And so they're out in the public and then they're committing another crime, which means they have another case. So actually we don't expect to see a rise in caseload with an additional jail or with additional beds in the jail because we'll be more adequately addressing the crime that is occurring for those individuals who are in front of our courts already. And that's not about location, right? That's not a comment about location. I want to know about the cost.

What's going to cost me? We'll get more information out there. I'm sure there will when we get closer. Larry Stevenson?

Well, it's obvious that everything tonight is about location, location, location. The first three rules. You know, the location and the things that we are worried about the most, I just want to reiterate, so many beautiful statistics have been thrown at you and you've thrown some at us. The kids, the properties, and the values. You tell me you're going to release people that are mentally, they have mental issues, I'll put it that way, and you're going to go hire them again. the location doesn't work for that reason alone. You want something out West, go out West. I don't know how I thought there was a movie that way or something, but that's not where we're at. The location, the property, the safety is just beyond what I can comprehend that's going to happen out there. corridor of getting to the 72, 68, or the 334 bypass, back down 68, back out 70 to get out to your nuclear aisle. I've driven that thousands of times. I mean, it's, you can do it from downtown with that when you turn your lights on, you'll be there in a minute. So I'm not buying that. There are some other statistics that you've thrown out about the jail. The jail doesn't bother me as much as some of the sizing of it. And I would talk gingerly about saying that the judges are letting people that need to be in jail, they're not putting them in. I would go talk to your judges before you said too much more about that. It's not very... I just leave it at that. I appreciate all the work.

I want to be clear, Mr. Stevenson. That was not an indictment against the judges. They have expressed, we would like to incarcerate this individual, but the sheriff just told us we're at 206 max. And so if it's a situation where it's a dangerous, they go somewhere. But if it's something where somebody needs to learn a lesson and they're not a danger to the community, shoplifting, call it whatever, they don't get incarcerated. They don't get to even...

Rehabilitation center.

Right, there's no opportunity for rehabilitation because of the size of our jail.

But I hear your concerns, but I'm just saying that's... Yeah, and the other thing that does really bother me, I've seen this happen before, and especially right on the south side, is annexation. city's going to go out there and then they're going to say you got water and you got this and we have these fills or these uh things that are you're getting and now we want you to be part of the city and then let's see so we don't do that the property owners come to the city to ask for annexation yeah we're not going to go there today but again property values safety, accessibility, and the kids. You can't just, and I understand, it's down here. Down here, you have your big festival. You also got city police. It's not just the sheriff downtown. It's the city and the... Watch out. Uh, my apologies. Uh, yeah, there's a couple of forces.

It was a clean meeting.

Yeah. So thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Thank you for your concerns. Cindy Southern. I just want to follow up while the next person's coming up, uh, on the judges. I've actually spoken with the judges personally. And, and if I've spoken with the judges personally about this, and as, as the mayor said, this is not an indictment about the judges. This is because our, we've, we meaning, And the entire community has handcuffed the judges. We've not given them the ability to put somebody in. And in some cases, they're like, no, no, no, this person needs to go in. Well, if the judge says that, we make space for them. But that probably means we have to let somebody else out that the same judge has put in there but on a lesser intensity of crime so that the public is, the public is, their direct safety is not at risk. Their property may be at risk, but they're not going to get beat up or shot or stabbed. And so we're making those choices. We're making the judges make those choices instead of saying, well, I need all five of these people to be in jail and I can only have the worst two or three because we didn't have a lot of space. Thank you.

Yeah. And if that's a mess, six minutes.

First, I wanted to clarify something. I believe someone had said there was a countywide survey sent out for the 72 South location. Is that correct?

We did a survey back in January. It was, it was, it, had parts of it in it asking about the 72 South site. Yes. Okay.

Will there be a survey sent out for 72 North site as well?

Not sure at this time. It is something we can look into. It wasn't super challenging and hard to do.

That would be important to get more input from the community. And we did talk about prisoners being released, the mental health prisoners. That is definitely a concern. They would walk down 72 possibly. You said there would be a company contracted for transportation. And that would hinge on if there's a vehicle available, I would say. And if they don't want to, they could walk 72. It's not impossible to cross 72 to go into the Terracella neighborhood where children are out every day playing. The property values. My husband and I just bought a house in Terracella last year. Then I see online there's going to be a jail proposed across the road from us. So that was very, very disheartening because I don't know how it could not affect property. And, well, going back to the prisoners being released, and Mayor Rue, you were talking about it happens downtown frequently and there's events with thousands of people downtown. That's a totally different situation than prisoners being released near a neighborhood. We don't have the coverage like the city police.

Like I said, I didn't want my comment to minimize your concern, but it's just inmates are released around people and they're not running through the crowds.

But not just children or neighborhoods. Another question. Where will the bail bondsman be located at? Is that going to be moved down by the proposed facility?

Bail bondsmen are private entities. We have no control over them.

So it's potential they could be purchasing the empty buildings that are there. Not on that property.

I mean, on Bechtel. I'm trying to think where things are zoned where people could put up a business down on Bechtel, but not really that close.

I believe it's two empty buildings there on Eagle City. It could possibly be for Osmond.

I don't know how they're zoned.

With their signs and buildings.

was all I had thank you Brad Soles good evening everyone commissioners I got a couple questions do we really need a jail that size and If we're planning to build a new jail, why not bring us two examples of a proposal? We keep saying that there was 30 sites, there was 29 sites. Let's get it down to three or four sites, bring it back to the people and let the people speak. And we keep talking about the prisoners. The prisoners don't care if you're on the south side, the north side, the east side. They don't care. So no matter if it's on the north side or the east side, right now, they get out right downtown. There's Wittenberg College right there. So when we think about prisoners, we got to think of them as individuals. They may not be the people that are sitting in this room tonight, but they're individuals. They need help. A lot of this racism is the shelter. People want to seek shelter. So they go steal a piece of candy. They know that they're going to get for shoplifting. They know they'll get a hot shower and a hot meal. So when we fix the homeless crisis, we'll be able to then fix this situation. So let's scale it down a little bit. We need a new jail, smaller jail. and let's go. But we need to do that as a community, not separate. But when you say those people, when you say if and what, it's all of our people. We are all one community, Clark County, Springfield, to build one jail, a smaller jail, to house all of our bad offenders. Thank you. Thank you.

This will be our last speaker. I'll have a question after she's done.

Just Melissa, as other people said, 50 acres just is overkill. The 450 sick beds, I think you were saying, again, just as Brad was saying, it's just, it seems too big. Are we anticipating an increase in population or are we anticipating an increase in crime? Why do we need that many? I know you're saying you want some empty beds, but it just doesn't make sense. You're talking about justice that they don't have anywhere to put these people, but when you have judges who do things like when there's vehicular manslaughter, it gets dropped down to a stoplight violation and like another vehicular homicide, they get 30 days. These are not, that's not justice. your judges are not providing justice. That's just two examples. And then as other people have said that live in the community, what's to stop them, especially the mental health people, they're probably not going to want to ride is my guess. I used to be a nurse. You've worked with a lot of mental health people and they're like, nope, I'm going to go do what I'm going to do. There's three lines right there. They can pop a spot. They can get right on the bike trail. into people's neighborhoods there's just nothing really stopping them um as far as the increased traffic they're on 334 and 72. would you consider like a stoplight or something because with the increased traffic i think they're going to do a traffic study if they're if this proceed That's another question. Where can we find these studies? You guys do study?

There's no study that's been done. And all studies are public information. Once they're released, promise. But there's no study that's been done there. They just have to do that.

But you've done other studies and I haven't been able to find results of any of those. So that's why I'm asking. Give me a list. Okay. And then another concern is, are you going to be putting a flock camera out there because of all of that? And you already know how I feel about that.

Is there any on location though, Ms. Rexroth?

I'm sorry?

On location specific, do you have more comments?

Yes, I do.

Thank you.

just seeing here oh I had a suggestion as far as brownfield sites you guys can get money to kind of clean those up that I think those are a possible great solution a few years ago you guys had gotten a grant to renovate but you turned that down because you didn't want to stay there for I remember 20-ish years something like that but if you would have done that back then you could have done renovations and probably gotten more grants to do more renovations and been planning this proper planning prevents poor performance so take the time you guys are trying to rush all this stuff again you could be doing renovations get those grants for these different things if you don't want to do it downtown maybe a brownfield push that out do renovations get the grants for that you guys get grants for all kinds of stuff make a law and get that grant you guys are good at that thank you Mr. Exhoff okay one last question for you all um is there anything that needed to be brought up that was never spoken about tonight

And on your honor system, if that question's out there still, please go to the microphone. Okay, we have three. Please take four. Each go to a microphone. These will be the last four speakers. Please keep your comments brief. It's 8 o'clock. But this is something we haven't even heard about tonight. So that's what I'm trusting you're going to bring to the floor, not just a continuous concern. No. Because it's just not tonight. That's all. Location. Thank you, Satish. Go ahead.

I just want to ask when the jail, our current jail was built in late 1970s, did they think they had enough beds and jail space for the future?

It's my understanding that they had limited funds and they would have built more had they had more funds. In fact, they originally designed the building to be able to go up an additional story. So they were planning for the future. Unfortunately, I'm not sure exactly how many years ago we actually had an engineering study to see about actually doing that. And the standards have changed and we're not able to... They said it's no longer able to be built on and have it be safe. Thank you. Okay. Question that we haven't heard tonight. Go ahead.

So you mentioned if it was a release and that you would have a share ride program for them to go anywhere in Clark County. I've actually been approached by a mate who was released. I work downtown and they lived in Columbus and they approached me. Where's your bus stop? How do I get out of Springfield? Are there any plans or thoughts for is not all of your inmates are from Clark County or going back to Clark County? Are there any other plans for release options for those folks?

So the ride share program would take them to wherever the bus stop would be. If that's where they need to go, that's where they would be taken. Thank you.

I appreciate the opportunity. Yeah, I know he's last. Go ahead. You're up. Okay, thanks. Appreciate the opportunity. Two questions. One, it stated that the proposal that was originally on the other side of town was stopped due to a strong neighborhood opposition.

I think you see that today from Terricella folks and many others.

um i'd like to know what exactly arguments they used to stop the proposed situation there because maybe we could reconstruct that and use it effectively for the people in terra sola that people in new morning hasn't been asked tonight yeah i'd like to know about that that's one question has been asked and i'd like documentation of that um i also appreciate the difficult situation that you're in so thank you very much Next question I'd like to ask is, whoever has a petition, how can we get that petition out? And next question is, how can we stop this? Okay, not the jail. Everyone needs a jail. I think we're way beyond that. No one has said that we don't need a jail. So, yes, we need a jail, but what can we do with a petition or otherwise to stop this in this location? Thank you. Thank you.

Do you have an answer?

Okay.

Yes, you said earlier that it was a the site was a well water protection area. What has changed on that? And I have another question about what's going to happen with the current jail. I mean, that building is going to still be there.

No, I think it'll be ultimately raised because the cost to actually upgrade it is in the millions and million. Okay, and so that would put the city, the city would find a new police station in an existing property most likely. Okay, so we're not building a new police station. So those things would be happening and then that property would be utilized.

I have no idea. What would probably happen is it would get torn down, and then it would be sold to a developer for redevelopment of downtown, and that's probably going to be a wash. Wash? Yeah, I mean, you're not going to make any money off of that because you're going to spend so much time tearing it down right next to Fountain and Columbia and North Street. You're not going to make any money on that.

Mm-hmm.

and the well water oh the yeah your first question about the wellhead protection area um nothing has changed it would still be a wellhead protection area uh there would be no manufacturing or anything like that explain what that is for the community it's basically uh it's in the recharge area close to the wells to make sure that there are i mean even the farmers around there have very strict rules that they have to follow with their chemicals. They have to store the chemicals in a certain way with a bunker around them to make sure that there's no way that that's going to get out and be able to get in. This facility would, of course, be constructed to ensure that there wouldn't be any contamination that would leach into the soil and potentially affect the well field.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I'm going to Okay, my finance director is saying one more question, so I'm going to listen to her. She's smart.

Yep. Thank you. To follow up on the well stuff, I know a 50-acre site filled with concrete and runoff is going to happen, and we have salt to worry about to roll into those protected wells. That's something I didn't hear about. And then I'm a specialized professional in the area. We just moved here. My wife and I are both specialists. And I'm trying to attract other specialists to the area and was wondering what you're doing to attract more specialists. We are on the North side and that was seen like a really good spot to be. We had places for our kids and everything like that. And we were looking at it and now it's like, Ooh, we're on three year contract. Why should we stay in Springfield?

Well, first of all, you should stay in Springfield because it's a great town and it's, and it's on its way up. I agree. And we're, We're trying to make it even better with wherever we place the jail. We are trying to make it a better, safer place.

If we don't have a jail that will penalize people from committing crimes, that's going to affect our community in the negative far more than where the placement of this jail is. Not that it minimizes any of your concerns in Tarasella. I'm just simply saying, if we don't have a facility that polices our community in an appropriate way and offer rehabilitation for those that are there that need the help, that can't even get it right now, that's going to be far worse for Springfield and Clark County. And that's why we're trying to find the right site. Whoever said thank you, this is a very difficult spot. If you can imagine sitting here, it is a very difficult spot because I can speak for everybody at this table. Your concerns are the concerns we have had about kids, about family, about everything. So we're here with you. No doubt, no doubt about that. No doubt about that. This would slow traffic down maybe in that area. I smiled at her, not you, ma'am. It's very serious what you're talking about. I didn't say less. I'm just saying if there's a stoplight there, it'll slow that. No, no. I'm talking about near where this.

I don't know. This is all speculation.

So I don't want to. I'm going to get in trouble. Yeah. it's it's a concern gone outside of our are you yeah thank you it's all it's all in consideration thank you for coming tonight thank you uh for being here and sharing your concerns do you need to adjourn okay is there a motion to adjourn the informal session for city commission so moved second it's been moved and seconded clerk call the roll mr ricketts yes

Mr. Rigsby? Mrs. Tackett? Yes. Mr. Wallace? Yes. Mr. Rue?

Yes.

All right, is there a motion to adjourn?

So moved. Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Thank you to the city for hosting this and all of your hospitality.

We do greatly appreciate it very much.

And thank you all for coming. We appreciate the comments. We appreciate hearing from the public. Continue to dialogue with us and ask your questions.