The City Council Reacts to the Jail Situation

The Moscow City Council held their discussion about the possible closure of the Latah County Jail… and they had a few choice words to say. We dive into their discussion along with the rest of the meeting in this video.

Read the full transcript of the video below:

“The Moscow City Council expressed frustration with Latah County leadership Monday over the recent news that the county jail may be at risk of closing.

‘I think this is bad leadership that we’re seeing from the county,’ said Councilor Drew Davis.”

Those are the lines that the Moscow-Pullman Daily used to open their article on the Monday night city council meeting, and —I mean — they’re not wrong. But…

How’s it going y’all? Aiden Anderson here with the Moscow Minutes. I’ve been watching Moscow City Council meetings for a while now, and I have not seen the council become so uniformly angry at a situation until now. We’ll get into the details in a second, let’s go through the rest of the meeting first.

The mayor began by reading a proclamation for domestic violence action month, and there were a couple of public comments as well. Kent Salisbury spoke on a number of different topics, particularly about the new home depot construction as it related to trash pickup. Roger Rowley got up to speak about Ordinance 2019-07 and some concerns he had, but was told by city staff and the mayor that he would need to hold his peace, because the subject matter he wished to speak on was currently under judicial review.

This was followed by the annual report from the Moscow Farmers Market commission, led by commission chair, Jamie Hill. Jamie spoke on the market’s past year of activities, including the fact that this year’s market had 158 vendors on the roster, which is 32 up from last year. She also mentioned the market’s coming costume contest and the fact that she is not seeking reappointment as the chair of the commission.

Next up, a procurement agreement for the advanced water metering infrastructure project. The city is working on updating their water metering system across the board. Evan Timar of city staff presented on the new metering system, which collects real time data on water meters without the need for manual drive-by checks. The project will likely take place in two phases over seven years, but the focus of this meeting was the company which would provide the metering systems. After some research, the city found that German company Zenner was substantially cheaper than the competing options. After some discussion about the project at large, the council unanimously approved the agreement with Zenner for the metering systems.

Following that, Scott Bontrager presented on the bids for an influent pump station upgrade for the city’s water reclamation facility. As part of a larger treatment plant upgrade, three screw pumps need to be replaced. The city received bids from four companies, with the lowest being from Apollo Inc. for $1,985,000 with a 5 year extended warranty for $59,000. This being the lowest bid, the city council voted unanimously to approve it.

After all of that, the council had their discussion about the potential closure of the Latah County Jail. Hoo boy.

Now, we covered elements of the county’s discussion of this issue in a previous video. I’ll go through those briefly. A couple weeks ago, the county commissioners held a discussion with the sheriff’s department and staff about the possible closure of the county jail, which was related to certain repairs and renovations that needed to be done in order to remain compliant with state code after some recent inspection. Key repairs mentioned included the fire suppression system, which encompasses the whole county courthouse as well as the jail and security doors, which alone could be hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair.

The county discussed the possibility of closing the jail during construction to address the current facility deficiencies, as well as other possible actions. Now, at the city meeting, Bill Belknap and the city council discussed the implications for Moscow if, in fact, the county decides to close the jail.

Belknap provided a summary of the city’s perspective. It was apparently the city of Moscow who provided the fire inspection that recommended the improvements which the sheriff listed, and which are being referenced as reasons why the county might close the jail. Now, if the county were to close the jail, the city police would be compelled to transport their inmates to Nez Perce County.

This would put a strain on city police, as the city sometimes keeps only the minimum of three officers on shift at a time, and city police staff are generally pretty strained anyway. At least one officer would be needed for transport if the jail closes, which would exacerbate this problem. Transport for inmates could cost the city up to $30,000 a year, and if the city is forced to implement the longer-term plan of hiring additional officers, it could end up costing an additional $375,000 per year.

Beyond these issues, Belknap indicated that the county may be exaggerating the scope of the problem at hand, and that the issues which the city brought up in their fire inspection may be more easily addressed. At any rate, he suggested that a solution which covers the bases for the city while also encouraging the county to keep the jail open would be recommended.

This wasn’t an action item, so no voting was necessary. There was, however, a lot of talk from the council. It might be best if you just hear it straight from them…

It’s rare that the council is so transparent about their emotions on an issue. It’s also rare that there would be this level of conflict, so to speak, between the county and the city which is the county seat. 

Now obviously, neither entity has taken further action that I know of beyond conversations. The jail is still operating, as far as I’m aware, and the city only just had its meeting on the subject. So what else is there to talk about?

The county, in its initial conversation with its own leadership, framed itself as objective in trying to field all possibilities for the future of the jail in lieu of the recent findings. The city in their conversation with their leadership, framed themselves as being strong-armed by the county and shut out of the larger conversation. Regardless as to which entity is “in the right” so to speak, the timing of the conversation is certainly a question that people will raise.

A conversation about the jail closing happens to pop up right near the end of an election cycle that includes the Latah County Sheriff as one of the positions on the ballot. I wouldn’t blame folks for raising an eyebrow at the circumstances, but I also wouldn’t jump to conclusions.

The sheriff candidates have absolutely jumped on the situation. Sheriff Skiles has acknowledged that the city should have been more involved in the conversation, and wants to both keep the conversation going and keep the jail open as long as possible. He hopes to get it fixed soon, so that, if another candidate gets elected, they don’t have to inherit that problem. James Fry and Chris Middleton both have asserted that this situation should have been addressed sooner, with the jail being a subject of concern for years prior. If it had been addressed earlier, perhaps ARPA funds could have been directed to fix the problem.

Indeed, other possible questions people will ask are financial in nature. How was this jail situation not incorporated into the county budget? Why is the city running on a shoestring budget for law enforcement when its total budget is virtually triple the size of the total county budget? Who’s gonna take the fall when it comes to paying for whatever comes next?

Maybe these questions are unfair and reactionary. But given the response from the city council, should we be expecting anything less? There’s not enough information going around to clear the air on the subject, and there could be solid reasons why that is the case. The county moves slowly on things in general, and they’ve got a lot going on already with early voting in full swing. The only thing I’ll push for in this circumstance is transparency. If you want to limit reactionary thinking when it comes to government decisions, make sure you put more information out there.

That’s all I got for you this week. It does feel like we’re just seeing raw reactions at this point. Once further actions are taken by either the city or the county, we’ll have a lot more to discuss here, and we’ll do our best to make sure y’all have access to the conversation in our own pursuit of transparency. As always, we’ll have the relevant links posted with this video, and if you have any questions, please reach out. I’m Aiden Anderson with the Moscow Minutes. See you next time!