Authority formed to oversee proposed new jail

Trustees of the Woodward County Public Facilities Authority have held their first meeting and have been sworn into office.

As trustees, they will oversee the monetary process and issues involved with the construction of the proposed new county jail.

Sworn into office for the authority were Woodward County Sheriff Gary Stanley, Woodward City Commissioner Roscoe Hill, former state representative Elmer Maddux, Fort Supply Mayor Gordon Ridings, former district attorney Ray Don Jackson, and County Commissioner Ted Craighead.

Not present was Harvey Rutherford, who also is a trustee.

The trustees elected Craighead as chairman and Stanley as vice chairman. County Clerk Ron Hohweiler was appointed secretary-treasurer.

Brent Clark, a bond attorney from Mooreland, is the lawyer who will be working with the trust authority.

During the meeting, Clark submitted corporation by-laws for trustees’ for approval. He said the by-laws did not have to be approved until the next meeting so that the trustees would have time to read them.

Clark told the trustees their service “is a public service” and that they would help educate the public about issues it has about the jail.

An election is being held Aug. 11 for voters to decide whether to raise the sales tax to pay for construction of a new jail.

The county currently has a sales tax in effect in the amount of two tenths of a cent. A sales tax increase to pay off the new jail over a 10-year period would raise that amount by five eighths of a cent to .825 of a cent until the detention center was paid off.

After the jail was paid for, the sales tax would revert to four tenths of a cent, of which two tenths would be used to pay for maintenance, operation and salaries for the jail.

The remaining two tenths of a cent would continue to pay for other county programs.

Don Jones, Cushing, an expert in the construction and regulation of jails, also was at the meeting to answer questions.

The new jail is expected to contain 124 or 118 beds.

Jones said the number of beds was based on a 20-year estimate from 2007 crime data provided by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.

“You can never have too many beds,” Jones said. “The number (of beds) is not excessive. Single cells and isolation cells are something the sheriff does not have.”

He pointed out that isolation cells, which would be put in a new jail, were needed for inmates who become ill with diseases, such as tuberculosis, and for inmates who are charged with serious crimes, such as murder, to keep them away from the rest of the jail population.

The limit for beds in the current Woodward County jail is 41.

According to Stanley, as of Tuesday, the jail was holding 51 inmates while two, charged with murder, were being held in Custer County.

Jones said it costs about $55 an hour to transport the prisoners to and from another jail when taking into account dollars paid to deputies involved in the transfer and gasoline fees.

He also pointed out that when these inmates become ill, the Woodward County sheriff has to schedule a doctor’s appointment, have deputies travel to Custer County to pick them up, take them to the doctor, then return them to the Custer County jail.

“It’s not just the county’s problem,” Jones said. “It needs to be thought of as our problem. It affects you directly or indirectly.”

In addition, Jones said, there are issues with safety when a jail is overcrowded.

As an example, Stanley told about an inmate who grabbed some bleach from a cleaning crew in the jail and threw it on another inmate.

“If an inmate were to sue the county (over safety issues) and win, it would cost more money to the tax payers, because that’s where the money would come from,” Jones said.

Also, because of overcrowding at the jail, warrants are going unserved.

“We have almost 2,000 unserved warrants,” Stanley said.

With the overcrowding situation, the county can be fined up to $10,000 a day.

As for the jail itself, the sheriff said, “Let’s say someone’s grandson gets arrested for DUI and is put in the same cell as a murderer. Are they safe? We’ve got people on cots, five in a jail cell fighting amongst each other. We just flat out don’t have any place to put them. Would you want your grandson to be put in the same cell as a killer?”

“We want them to be safer in jail,” Stanley said. “We like to segregate the dangerous ones from the less dangerous ones but we don’t have any place to put them.”

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