Questions persist in expansion plan

SANDPOINT — District Judge Charles Hosack said Monday he needs additional information before he can determine the legality of Bonner County’s plan to self-finance the construction of a juvenile detention facility and a work release center.

Hosack predicted at the start of the judicial confirmation hearing on the financial aspects of the $10 million plan that he likely would not issue a ruling from the bench due to the complexity of the matter.

“It’s a complicated area of the law,” said Hosack.

After about two hours of discussion, Hosack’s prediction proved correct.

The judge continued the hearing into August and called on the county’s legal counsel to submit additional information identifying the various clauses embedded in the financial agreements and leases and how they function.

“There needs to some explanation how these things work,” Hosack said.

Since the plan’s inception, county officials have either been unable or unwilling to explain the mechanics in detail.

County commissioners defer technical inquiries to its legal counsel. But those inquiries disappear into a black hole at the prosecutor’s office. Chief Deputy Prosecutor Louis Marshall laterals them to Deputy Prosecutor Scott Bauer, who has not responded to repeated requests for comment.

In broad strokes, the plan involves contracting with Rocky Mountain Corrections to construct a 32-bed juvenile lockup and a 60-bed minimum security jail. The facilities would be leased back to the county with an option to buy, and the lease payments and operating costs would be covered by charging inmate fees and renting out bed space to the state and other counties.

The leases would have an annual renewal clause, which Bauer argued on Monday would confine any financial obligations to the current fiscal year and not bind future commissioners to the plan.

Since the plan does not require a tax hike, the county could implement it without asking voters for permission. But this prospect has not gone over well with the public, members of which have mounted legal challenges to the judicial confirmation.

Sagle landowner Lou Goodness filed one of the challenges and told Hosack that Bauer had spent a good chunk of his presentation justifying the circumvention of the constitutional mandate a public vote on indebtedness beyond a fiscal year.

“But he certainly hasn’t gotten around the liability issue,” Goodness said.

The remark dovetails with the legal challenge filed by Hope resident and Republican sheriff nominee Daryl Wheeler, who maintains in court documents that the liabilities in the agreements will outlive the renewable appropriations clauses.

Bauer disputed that take on the liability issue. He said the county would not be liable for cost overruns or construction delays under the terms of the agreement. Moreover, government would cease to exist if it tried to account for every possible liability.

“The county would shut down,” he said.

But Hosack said there were still too many unknowns in the record to make a decision. Hosack lauded the county’s effort to try and save taxpayers money, but said it remained unclear exactly what would happen if the county pulled out of the agreements after the facilities were built and filled with inmates.