CLEVELAND — As an organizer with the Cuyahoga County Jail Coalition, Kareem Henton has been placing signs around the county opposing the county’s purchase of a 72-acre piece of land in Garfield Heights for a new jail site.
Despite his efforts, the county council voted 8-3 to approve the purchase of the property, but the county hasn’t finalized a way to pay for building the new facility.
“What they have done it try to make it harder to combat what they’re doing,” Henton said.
The plan to pay for the $750 million facility is to extend the county’s sales and use tax. In the last county council meeting, the council voted to move that decision back to committee.
“By purchasing the land ahead of approval, their excuse is, ‘well we don’t want to waste the money,’” Henton said.
Michael Dever is the county’s director of public works. He said there aren’t many pieces of land this size in the county that are ready for construction and there is more space at the new site compared to the current spot in downtown Cleveland.
“The problem with large jails like this are vertical in nature,” Dever said. “That means transportation, elevators up and down to be able to move people around. At the new site and facility, it’ll be more horizontal in nature.”
He said the county wants to lock in the contracts to build the new jail just in case inflation changes the price tag.
“We feel very confident that the funding source, which is in council’s hands right now, is going to be approved before the end of the year,” Dever said.
The new jail would be built in a mostly residential area on Transportation Boulevard just as soon as you get off 77. Some in the area said they’re not comfortable bringing all the county’s accused criminals within a mile of their doorsteps, but Lee twiggy said it’s a big investment that can help his town, and he feels he lives far enough away from the site.
“It’s gonna happen, It’s gonna happen, you know,” he said. “I ain’t gonna move. We don’t have no problems over here, you know, and I can’t see anybody getting out of jail walking all the way over here to cause problems.”
The current jail is in the same building as the courthouse. Henton doesn’t want that broken up. He wants the choice on funding the new jail on the ballot and not in the hands of the council. He also wouldn’t want the county’s newest piece of land going to waste.
“It’ll be a huge waste, and all I’m gonna be thinking about (is) just the money that could have been going into our schools, funding programs and athletics for our kids,” he said.
Another criticism of moving the jail to Garfield is the potential hardship for people who want to visit their loved ones. There’s also the cost of getting defendants to and from the jail. Dever said they’ve already mapped out their budget for that and the new jail’s structure can save the county $10 million in transportation costs for defendants.