ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 9, 1996 TAG: 9603110094
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
Wythe County Sheriff Wayne Pike opposes the idea of participating in a regional jail with Pulaski, Giles and Grayson counties and the city of Radford and wants to look into ways to build a new Wythe jail instead.
But a jail-study committee did not make a recommendation to the Wythe County Board of Supervisors Friday. "We need to meet one more time, at least," Supervisor Mark Munsey said.
Pike was unable to attend the meeting but said in a letter that a regional jail would not be economically feasible for Wythe County.
"He's recommending that we drop the regional-jail concept and move forward with whatever it takes to build a local jail," said Lt. Col. Doug Cooley of the Sheriff's Office.
Munsey and Supervisor Clay Lawrence met earlier this week with Assistant Radford City Manager Bob Lloyd, chairman of the New River Valley Regional Jail Authority, for information on the 240-bed facility to be built near Dublin. Its projected cost is $24 million and it is expected to be finished early in 1999.
It will be the last regional jail in which the state will pay half the construction cost, amounting to $10 million. The participating localities will borrow $10 million, which will be repaid based on the number of prisoners housed in the regional jail. The localities also would borrow $4 million for electronic communications and other non-construction costs but would have no capital outlay costs.
The alternative would be for the four localities to build or improve their jails under stricter state standards but without the state paying 50 percent of the construction cost, Lloyd said. "We just can't afford that."
Pike is concerned with the loss of local control, prisoner transportation and termination of 13 Wythe jail employees.
Lloyd told Munsey and Lawrence Monday that employees at existing jails would be offered jobs at the regional jail. Pike told the county Board of Supervisors Tuesday that he would want to see a contract guaranteeing that.
"Some of [the Wythe jail employees] have been here for 15 or 20 years, and they're very scared about their jobs," he said.
Lloyd also said prisoner transportation would be handled by the authority, leaving local deputies on duty at home.
"They may say they intend on doing that," Cooley said Friday. "I don't think they can hire enough people to handle that responsibility. ... By Virginia law, it's the sheriff's responsibility."
Wythe County Administrator Bill Branson said he was leaning against a regional jail and toward "building what we need today with the capability of expanding."
Several supervisors were dissatisfied that the jail committee has not made a recommendation yet.
"We've done absolutely nothing except sit around the table and talk," Supervisor Carleton Rose said at Tuesday's board meeting.
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