Judge rejects jail facility agreements

SANDPOINT — A district judge is rejecting Bonner County’s controversial plan to construct new detention facilities without a public vote.

Judge Charles W. Hosack ruled that provisions within agreements associated with the 34-bed juvenile detention facility and a 60-bed work release center create liabilities prohibited by the Idaho Constitution.

The plan proposed leasing property at the sheriff’s complex to Rocky Mountain Corrections, which would finance the construction of the two facilities. The county would pay a total annual lease rate of $782,100 and take ownership of the facilities after 30 years.

The county intended to fund the annual lease payments through inmate fees and renting bed space to the other local, state and federal jurisdictions.

The county petitioned Hosack to review the base leases and lease trust agreements to determine whether they were constitutionally valid.

The county’s legal counsel maintained that the agreements did not violate a constitutional prohibition banning local governments from incurring indebtedness or liabilities extending beyond a single fiscal year without a vote because they were equipped with non-appropriation clauses. The clauses would enable the county terminate the agreement without any further liability.

Taxpayers Lou Goodness and Darryl Wheeler, the Republican nominee for sheriff, moved to dismiss the county’s petition, arguing that the various agreements would burden the county beyond an individual fiscal year and thus require a vote.

But what would happen if the county activated the bailout clauses?

Hosack concluded that the county would lose title to the land on which the facilities sit for up to 29 years. The county could also be deprived of the facilities, which would conflict with a state mandate requiring counties to provide housing for inmates.

Hosack said Idaho Supreme Court cases define an encumbrance, such as a transfer of title, on county property a liability. Moreover, the loss of the right to use the facility would create a liability, Hosack said in a 16-page ruling issued in Kootenai County on Friday.

The project’s financiers have pointed out that the county could remedy the housing issue by turning to other facilities or even seek judicial confirmation that alternative facilities are an ordinary and necessary expense.

“This creates a ‘liability.’ The availability of a means of discharging that liability does not negate the fact that a liability is incurred,” Hosack wrote.

Hosack further held that judicially confirming the plan would be an “unwise blurring” of the roles of courts and government. Asking the court to settle future disputes in the agreement would create an emergency requiring judicial intervention in what are properly legislative or executive functions.

In a statement released on Saturday, Wheeler applauded Hosack’s for his common sense approach to the law and for upholding the constitution and thanked Goodness, whose arguments were referenced throughout the judge’s decision to grant the motion to dismiss.

“The people wanted to vote on this issue and the judge determined it was their right to do so,” said Wheeler.

Wheeler called the ruling a victory for taxpayers here and the rest of the state, and called on the county to utilize the $17 million in unrestricted reserves to help fund the construction a new juvenile lockup, which seem to agree is sorely needed.