Cuyahoga County officials have come to an agreement on how to best move forward with building what is now set to be a new $900-million jail in Garfield Heights.
The agreement, as discussed yet again on Tuesday, revolved around coming to terms on a first and related problem: how to pay for repairs and renovations on the Justice Center’s court and facility operations.
Over the next six years, the county will pay for about $150 million to bring the downtown Justice Center up to speed, following years of complaints about its shoddy plumbing, broken elevators and safety conditions.
The decision means the county can now move on to figuring out its next big-ticket expenditure: how exactly to come up with the almost $900 million to cover construction costs—primarily by issuing bonds —of the new jail.
“By aligning on a long-term plan,” a press release read on Tuesday, “we are making strategic investments that address immediate needs while avoiding more costly challenges in the future.”
And, it seems, futher rifts.
While groundbreaking is slated in Garfield Heights this summer, the major stakeholders in the new Central Services campus have frequently clashed over where exactly the jail should be and who exactly should be funding it. Both County Prosecutor Michael O’Malley and a slew of county judges have long argued separating the downtown courts and the main jail would sever an already strained system that relies on efficiency. Both threatened lawsuits.
But some agreement seemed to be met on Tuesday, when Council convened to debate over both its pathway to bettering the strained Justice Center and how it would pay the construction company, Gilbane, they aimed to hire for June’s groundbreaking.
Even if that meant more debate: How do we make money off the new shooting range to be installed? Is using geothermal heat really going to save the county money?
“I’ll just read one paragraph that irritates me,” District 3 Councilman Martin Sweeney told the body, holding a copy of Tuesday’s press release. He read aloud the aforementioned quote. “What are the aligning long-term plans? I’d like to know.”
District 5 Councilman Michael Gallagher seconded that complaint. The costs of specific amenities—that shooting range, for example—should at least be agreed upon before the county goes to the bond market.
“We’re gonna go borrow money for something when we really don’t know what’s going on,” he said. “This is nuts.”
O’Malley, who gave public comment at Tuesday’s hearing, seem suprised that bulldozers had already shown up to the new site in Garfield Heights, having found out “two weeks ago” about the fact.
Which seemed to bring up a similar cart-before-the-horse issue: whether county code (also debated Tuesday) allows any funds to be spent on the Justice Center “until plans are reviewed,” as he recited at the podium.
“It all comes down to fiscal discipline,” O’Malley said. “And that starts right here with this body. And like I said, whether that language is on this or not on this, you control the purses.”
The county plans to confirm the jail’s $900 million price tag before Gilbane begins construction in June.
