Decision will allow Auburn, others more time to find answer for regional facility

Local cities will have two more years to house their misdemeanor offenders in King County jails owing to King County Council’s recent decision to extend the regional jail services contract.

That decision also calls for the county to negotiate with the cities on a long-term contract.

“Extending the contract an additional two years will give us more time to work with the cities to develop a real solution – a long-term strategy for a regional jail that is efficient and cost-effective for the public,” said Council Chair Julia Patterson. “This is just the first step.”

The ordinance calls for:

• Immediate reopening of negotiations with the cities in King County to extend the current jail services contract by at least two years, to Dec. 31, 2014.

• Expansion of bed space at the Maleng Regional Justice Center, with a proposal delivered by the County Executive to the Council by October 1, 2008, in time for consideration in the 2009 budget process.

• Negotiation with the state and the cities on a capital construction plan for expansion of both jails and community corrections programs.

• Negotiation of a new long-term contract with the cities for regional integration of criminal justice services and a partnership for capital funding for new jail capacity, allocation of operating costs, and the use of criminal justice efficiencies and best practices to benefit the system.

A majority of cities in King County, including Auburn, now contract with the county for jail beds for their misdemeanor inmates, as well as with Yakima County. In 2002 King County, faced with jail population projections that showed it was running out of room, announced that it would no longer accept misdemeanor inmates from the cities after 2012. Yakima County has set its own deadline of 2010, but negotiations are ongoing.

But county officials now say that efficiencies in court, prosecutor and public defense procedures as well as increased use of alternatives to incarceration, have produced lower inmate projections and available bed space.

To meet the anticipated 2012 deadline several cities already have begun planning for siting of local jails, but at the Council’s Committee of the Whole meeting on June 30, a panel of elected officials and staff from local cities supported the re-opening of negotiations to extend the current jail contract.

Auburn Mayor Pete Lewis, eye firmly fixed on the straits the 2012 deadline imposed on local cities and involved in local efforts to build a regional jail, said he would like assurance before considering a long-term contract that the county won’t put the cities in a similar situation in the future.

“That is our responsibility to taxpayers,” Lewis said.