ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, October 16, 1996 TAG: 9610160056
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BEDFORD
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
A former Bedford County supervisor warned the Board of Supervisors Tuesday that the county may get more than it bargained for when it gives its jail to the Blue Ridge Regional Jail Authority in exchange for a new Sheriff's Office.
"To give our jail to an authority, what is an authority?" former supervisor John Sublett asked at a public hearing. "An authority is something that's not responsible to anyone. They'll borrow money and the taxpayers have to foot the debt.
"The taxpayers of this county paid for this jail, and if we're going to give it to this authority the more we give to Lynchburg, the radio system, water and sewer, our jail It's annexation. We won't even have to hire a lawyer."
Furthermore, Sublett said, the county would be accepting only $325,000 for its old jail, about a third of its assessed value. "I don't think any of you all would make real estate people," he told the board.
Former Bedford County Sheriff's Office Capt. Ronald Laughlin also spoke against the swap, saying, "Why do we have to give up what we have now that's working? Why can't we keep our jail?" Laughlin also expressed concerns over the expense and liability for transporting prisoners between regional jail facilities in Bedford County and Lynchburg.
Sublett, Laughlin and others criticized the board for holding a public hearing after it had agreed to turn over its jail to the regional jail. Bedford County already has signed an agreement to join Halifax and Campbell counties and the cities of Bedford and Lynchburg in the regional jail.
As a member of the regional jail, Bedford County will pay $367,000 a year for 69 beds in the regional system, which includes space at a new regional jail complex to be built in Lynchburg. Prisoners awaiting trial locally would be held in the existing Bedford County Jail.
Control of that local jail and the building in which the Sheriff's Office is housed will be given to the regional jail in exchange for money to build a new sheriff's office and communications center.
In an interview before Tuesday's public hearing, Supervisor Bob Crouch, who was elected last year, said, "A public hearing should have been held as early as two years ago, before anyone signed an agreement to turn this property over. I, as a lifelong resident of this county, am a part owner of that property and nobody asked my opinion. I don't think that's good."
The Bedford County Board of Supervisors voted 4-3 in March to join the regional jail. They had originally voted to join in June 1994, but backed out in November 1994 after expressing skepticism over whether the state government would provide promised money for regional jail facilities.
After looking at other options, such as expanding the county jail, the supervisors decided joining the Blue Ridge Regional Jail would be the least expensive option the county had for its long-term jail needs.
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