Judge rejects Bonner County jail blueprint
Monday, September 8, 2008 11:24 AM PDT
SANDPOINT (AP) — An Idaho judge rejected plans to build a new Bonner County juvenile jail and work release center without first holding a public vote, saying doing so would violate the Idaho Constitution.
First District Judge Charles W. Hosack ruled that the plan violates a constitutional provision that requires a public vote on debts and liabilities that extend beyond one fiscal year.
It’s the same provision the Idaho Supreme Court cited in 2006 when the state’s highest court effectively halted the city of Boise’s effort to sell bonds to finance expansion of the local airport’s parking garage.
‘‘The people wanted to vote on this issue and the judge determined it was their right to do so,’’ Darryl Wheeler, the Republican nominee for Bonner County Sheriff and one of two people who spearheaded efforts to stop the plan, said in a statement to the Bonner County Daily Bee after last week’s ruling.
Wheeler and Lou Goodness, another opponent, called Hosack’s decision a victory for taxpayers here and the rest of the state, and demanded the county instead use $17 million in unrestricted reserves to help fund a new juvenile lockup.
Under the rejected plan, property at the sheriff’s office complex in Sandpoint would have been leased to Rocky Mountain Corrections. The private company would have then financed construction of a 34-bed juvenile lockup and 60-bed work release center.
The county would have paid more than $782,000 a year and would have owned the buildings after 30 years, financing the plan through inmate fees and payments for inmates from other jurisdictions.
Hosack, however, said the financing plan didn’t eliminate the need to first hold a vote.
‘‘This creates a ’liability,’ ‘‘ he wrote. ‘‘The availability of a means of discharging that liability does not negate the fact that a liability is incurred.’’
The constitutional provision that forbids local governments from taking on more than a year’s worth of debt without a vote has been the subject of controversy for several years in Idaho, with opponents of projects arguing governments are trying to circumvent the restriction in their zeal to erect facilities without a vote.
Local officials, meanwhile, have argued the provision has been misinterpreted and is now sapping governments of their ability to provide needed services.
An effort to change the Idaho Constitution to ease construction of some projects failed in the 2008 Legislature.
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Information from: Bonner Daily Bee, http://www.bonnercountydailybee.com
