
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 1, 1993                   TAG: 9309010182
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD                                LENGTH: Medium

COMMUNITIES LOOK AT 5 JAIL DATA PROPOSALS

Five firms have submitted proposals to a regional jail committee to gather data from participating localities required for state financial assistance.

Radford and the counties of Giles, Floyd, Carroll and Grayson still want to see if a regional jail would save them money in the long run.

Wythe County has dropped out of the project, and Pulaski County has taken no formal action to get in or out. Both had helped fund an earlier study, which was supposed to meet requirements to have the state fund 50 percent of the jail, but the 1993 legislature added a requirement for a more detailed study.

The bids are from three firms in the region, one in Norfolk and one in Dallas.

A representative from each of the five localities will hear presentations next month from the firms, rank the proposals and negotiate a price.

But Bob Lloyd, Radford's assistant city manager, said the committee members, who have been studying a regional jail for several years, can only go back to the governments they represent to see if they want to proceed.

Radford, Carroll and Grayson already have committed to the funding. But each government's percentage share was based on Wythe and Pulaski being part of the study.

"We're committed to doing the study," said Carroll County Administrator Bill Mitchell. "We don't feel that we can make the decision without it. Whether or not we participate, once that study is complete, is a different ball game."

Any contract would have to be through one of the jurisdictions, a legally constituted organization or the New River Valley Planning District Commission, which made the earlier study.

The committee's task was simply to look into the feasibility of the project. "That's where I think our responsibility ends, until the communities which we represent take some specific action," Lloyd said.

Any study will have to be made quickly, perhaps within 90 days.

That would make the results available to the localities involved by early January. The localities would have to decide by March if they want to go ahead with construction.

"Unless we have everything to the Department of Corrections by March 1, 1994, then we're looking at March 1 or thereabouts of 1996 before we can submit it again," Lloyd said. "If we wait that long, then everything that we have done thus far has to be done over again."

That would include the study done by the commission and the more detailed one being considered now.

It also would mean that the state would provide only 25 percent of the cost, instead of the 50 percent it would provide if the data is complete in time for the next funding cycle, said Bob Cooper of the Department of Corrections.

by CNB