Citizens uphappy about jail location

A decision to build a new county jail near Franklin Road and 24th Avenue NW is drawing complaints from the people who live in the area.

Monday, several families living along Churchhill Downs Road said they were unhappy with the announcement that Cleveland County’s Board of Commissioners would build a new jail facility near Franklin Road and 24th Avenue NW.

The 3-0 decision, made at the commission’s weekly meeting, placed a new jail facility on a 28.92-acre tract of land purchased by the county in April. That sale — a $1.3 million deal — was finalized this summer.

And while the decision — made after months of discussions and review of more than 60 possible sites — was praised by some officials, several residents said they were not pleased by the commission’s action.

“I’m not happy with it,” said John Fletcher, who lives on Churchill Downs, just off Franklin Road. “We haven’t been very well informed. We don’t know exactly what’s been going on.”

Locating the jail along Franklin Road, he said, was “really wrong” and a hazard to the county. “They talked about having it (the jail) in Lexington,” he said. “We didn’t know. There are a lot of fuzzy things going on.”

Fletcher said commissioners told residents of the area “there would be a discussion and (they would) keep us informed about it.”

“But they made a decision without any input,” Fletcher said. “They didn’t tell us before; we didn’t have any input at all.”

Fletcher said he was concerned officials would lease beds in the facility and take in inmates from other states.

“This area is a growing part of Norman,” he said. “There is a shopping center out here, a hospital, and a vo-tech, so it doesn’t seem like a very desirable place for a jail. This is an entry port into Norman, and of all the entire county they could choose from, it seems like a silly place to put the jail.”

James Hannah, another resident of the Churchill Downs area, said he, too, was upset by the decision.

“I’m very disappointed,” Hannah said. “I was kinda expecting some pre-notification. We thought that after some previous meetings we’d had with the commission they would contact us directly.”

Area residents, Hannah said, didn’t want a jail located on one of Norman’s main entry points.

“I thought the city felt strongly about preserving the gateway into Norman, to ‘put your best foot forward,’ particularly during football season,” he said. “I don’t know what it is we can do; maybe we can speak to the city.”

Hannah said he also wanted to know if county officials were able to overcome environmental issues on the land. “That area is part of the Little River drainage. I’d like to know if the Corps of Engineers have been talked to, they are responsible for all that drainage.”

Hannah, who said he and his family have lived in the area for the past four years, said his main concerns centered on safety, property values in the area, and the logistics and burden of building a second jail.

“People think about safety first,” he said. “Then they think about property values, then the third thing is the logistics or the burden of building another jail. I wonder if it has been fully investigated. I don’t think the financial impact on the citizens of the county and the city have been investigated. I want to know how the county plans to pay for all that. Are they gonna surprise the citizens of the county with a tax increase?”

But while many residents in the area expressed concern about the location, the mayors of Moore and Norman said, overall, they were pleased by the decision.

“I’m OK with it,” Moore Mayor Glenn Lewis said. “I’m pleased with the decision.”

No decision about the jail, Lewis said, would please everyone.

“Everyone is a ‘not in my back yard’ type,” he said. “It’s just like when you put in new sewer plant, people gripe about the location, but everyone knows you have to have one.”

Lewis, a former member of the jail site selection committee, said members of the commission worked hard to make the best decision possible. “I know the commissioners went to a lot of trouble and lot of hard work,” he said.

Like Lewis, Norman Mayor Cindy Rosenthal praised the commission’s decision.

“I want to congratulate the commission,” she said. “I know it’s been a very difficult decision. I know they’ve done a careful job. This is a choice that will be beneficial to the county and all its communities.”

Rosenthal said she believed county officials would work to address concerns about the jail’s location. “I know, at the same time, they are working diligently to address the concerns of residents of Hidden Lake area who worried about the site.”

Rosenthal said she was encouraged by the commission’s efforts to minimize “any type of intrusion” by the jail in the neighborhood.

“I know they will do a careful job of planning to mitigate those concerns. And while I wasn’t privy to all the information that the commission had in front of them, I knew the pros and the cons of the Lexington site, and the pros and cons of the downtown site. And based on what I know, I believe this was a good choice.”