Cabarrus Cheap Seats

Update: I was right 

In 1999, then Sheriff Canady presented the jail over-crowding problem to the Board of Commissioners; and we’re starting the eighth year with the problem still unresolved. Even though the County is constructing an annex to the jail to help relieve some immediate strain, it’s only enough to cover the a short-term need. The need for a new jail is generally accepted by those in law enforcement. Until late last year, it looked like the County was out of the woods with the defeat of a lawsuit filed by about a dozen Downtown Concord residents. At the last minute, they filed an appeal of the decision. This decision offset the major portion of the jail project by at least a year and possibly longer.

With the election of two new Commissioners in November, the first order of business was to reopen dialog yet again with those suing the City of Concord to come to an amenable compromise with the County over the scope of the project at the Downtown location. Following being sworn-in, Commissioner Grace Mynatt suggested forming a committee to go through the process again. In subsequent meetings, Commissioners Juba and Mynatt were appointed to serve on a committee to, yet again, discuss this project and get the it moving forward by coming to a compromise.

This committee needs to accomplish this detailed compromise by this Spring in order to keep the Sheriff’s Administration Building moving forward.

The committee will fail and here’s why.

Both sides in the proposed compromise fail to appreciate the needs of the other side.

The County needs to build a large jail somewhere. According to the latest Census figures, Cabarrus County has grown 50% in the past 15 years. To put that in perspective, more than 1 in 3 residents in Cabarrus County have shown up since in the 1990 Census. Part of this growth is that there are more people being processed through the County Justice System. The county is spending at least $750,000 transporting inmates to various locations around the state. This price will continue to increase as more inmates are transported, fuel costs go up, etc. The County is under a mandate from the State of North Carolina to deal with this problem as quickly as possible. In addition, any resources being used to cart inmates around the state are not being used for other law enforcement functions - creating a potential public safety disaster.

Downtown jail opponents want an idyllic neighborhood free from the stigma of having a jail nearby. Someone familiar with Concord might find this a little strange because the Courthouse and Jail have been in Downtown Concord for upwards of 200 years. However, it’s possible to navigate around Downtown and not be aware of the fact that there’s a jail downtown. From some statements made about this project, many people who signed the petition circulated in 2005 opposing the jail project were against the jail being moved to Downtown Concord. It would be fair or accurate to lump all (or even a majority) of Downtown Concord residents into those who oppose the project. The Courthouse attracts patrons and other businesses to Downtown Concord. As a matter of fact, most folks who live out the direction that I do rarely make the trek to Downtown Concord for anything other than civic transactions (registering to vote, documents at the Courthouse, etc.) Most Downtown business owners are aware of this and lobbied for years to keep the entire Justice Complex in Downtown Concord. Most of the opposition is fueled by residents who don’t want it to be obvious that there is a jail downtown - and a six-story structure would do just that.

While it would seem a bit cynical to state that these two groups couldn’t come to a workable common ground, there are some other parameters to consider.

First, there’s the urgency of the need of the County to get the project completed. Cabarrus County needs more jail beds - yesterday. It would be generous to consider the current conditions of the jail as humane. A recent Cabarrus Neighbors article described the need for additional medical personnel at the Jail because of a greater concentration of sick inmates. The scope and location of current project was approved in 2004. There have been more solicitations for public input (even before the 2004 approval) than with any project in the County’s history. The materials being used for the structure (concrete and steel) are increasing in price daily. Estimates by Turner Construction put the cost of delaying the project at $1 Million per month. This is in addition to the $750,000 per year of transporting inmates around. Neither one of those numbers include the additional staff to deal with the new problems at the jail outlined in the Cabarrus Neighbors article.

Second, there’s the zoning issue. The strange part about this is that the handful of residents in the lawsuit are not suing the County; but they are suing the City of Concord. The City of Concord offered the County a Conditional Use Permit for the project under its current parameters. If the County makes changes to the current project, they will have to go through the entire permitting cycle again, running the risk of another lawsuit. There is no guarantee that a compromise in the project will placate all of those suing the city. If the County abandons the Jail altogether, then they will need to move rapidly on building another jail structure somewhere else in the county - which would take a few years at least. The lowest risk option is for the County to wait for the Appeal that will probably fall in favor of the City of Concord’s decision to grant the Conditional Use Permit.

Third, there are the disparate interests of the Downtown Residents. Interests in the Downtown area are represented by what seems like more than a half-dozen organizations. Right off the top of my head: there’s Citizens for a Better Concord, Historic Concord, The Concord Downtown Development Corporation, and the new Downtown Concord Merchants Association. Monty Python fans would find it difficult to not think of the “People’s Front of Judea vs. The Judean People’s Front” routine from The Life of Brian. The reason behind this is that the recent renaissance of Downtown Concord is largely-publicly funded. From the expansion of City and County buildings Downtown to funds for historic restoration to capital projects by the City like the Roundabout on Cabarrus Ave. and the parking structure - public investment has guided private development while in the western part of the city the City is (barely) keeping up with basic services as private investment leads the way. So, both support and opposition are not discreetly defined; but follow an nuanced continuum.

The fourth factor is the perceived attitude of some of those in opposition. Over the past few years there has been a disproportional amount of funding and interest in Downtown Concord. Currently, most folks in the remainder of Concord don’t mind. For the overwhelming majority, they are unaware and are just happy to be paying less taxes than their neighbors in Charlotte. For those who know that it’s going on, they are generally supportive; because having an attractive Downtown appeals to them for any number of reasons. However, if the jail project were jettisoned from Downtown Concord to another part of the city - that support could shift. There’s a fine line between supporting a neighborhood and being involved in a quasi-feudal arrangement where tax dollars and the decisions of how they get spent are decided within 2 or 3 blocks of Union Street. Currently, Concord runs the risk of this. A quick review of the City of Concord District Map demonstrates a bias to the Downtown Area. The current map doesn’t show it; but a majority of the City Council members live within blocks of each other. The result is a Downtown area that gets what it wants nearly all of the time that it asks for it. And there are those who will not tolerate a jail expansion at all.

I voted for Joni Juba in 2004 and for Grace Mynatt in the last election. They are both capable and intelligent Commissioners. I’m sure if anyone could pull this off - it is them. However, this same thing was tried last year with no real results; because of the four factors mentioned earlier. These four factors - the urgency of the need, the risk caused by the need to rezone, the fractious nature of the Downtown area, and the inflexibility of the jail opponents spell failure for this new committee. But is that such a bad thing?

Is it really fair that the jail be expanded to a new area? Think about it. The County would have to pick an area less wealthy than the denizens of Downtown Concord. There are scarcely few areas in Cabarrus County that would be able to finance the costly court battle. The residents near a remote facility would know that this project was foisted on them by people whose home values are far beyond the median home value in Cabarrus County.

If the committee fails, here’s what happens. The project keeps the same scope; but the County spends nearly $20 million extra in finishing it; and does so a few years late because of project delays.

This project will be complete a little more than 10 years after the problem was identified. And here’s the fun part: in the coming decade, we’ll probably get to do this all again.