ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 1, 1996 TAG: 9602010055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RADFORD
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
Wythe County might have a chance to join an existing regional jail project in the New River Valley, but its officials would have to act fast.
"What they ought to do, if they have that kind of interest, is talk to us," said Assistant Radford City Manager Bob Lloyd, who is chairman of the New River Valley Regional Jail Authority.
A jail committee of the Wythe County Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday to gauge regional jail interest by writing sheriffs in the bordering counties of Bland, Carroll, Smyth and Grayson.
However, Grayson already is part of the New River Valley project, along with the counties of Pulaski and Giles and city of Radford. It will be the last regional jail to qualify for 50 percent state funding; state participation in future projects will be a maximum of 25 percent.
If Wythe is interested in joining the existing regional jail, Lloyd said, funding for the additional beds required would have to be added in the jail bill now making its way through the General Assembly.
"There's no way that I could even estimate the chances," Lloyd said. "But, if we don't try, we'll never know."
Funding bills in the 60-day legislative session will be considered this month.
It would not be hard to add spaces for Wythe prisoners to the regional jail design plan, Lloyd said. "The whole thing's modular. You can add a pod."
The New River Valley Regional Jail is to be built in the Dublin area. In a meeting Tuesday with Wythe County Supervisors Mark Munsey and Clay Lawrence, Wythe Sheriff Wayne Pike said that might be too far to transport prisoners conveniently. Wytheville is a little more than 30 miles from Dublin.
Wythe County must either join a regional jail project or build its own jail. Despite improvements to the existing 70-year-old building, it is overcrowded and needs better wiring, plumbing and other facilities.
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