Candidates discuss jail future

FINDLAY — Hancock County officials, consultants and community members have been discussing for years whether the county needs to expand its jail or build a new, bigger one. Dormitory-style, less restrictive housing for misdemeanor offenders also has been discussed. The 35-year-old jail on West Crawford Street is not designed for the mental health and substance use disorder-related needs of many inmates today, officials have said. The problems will only worsen with time as the state steers lower-level felons away from state prisons, forcing counties to house more of them. Among the options that have been discussed: building a new jail along the west side of County Road 140, in the area of the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles, or expanding the existing jail. A community advisory committee has been studying the future needs for a jail and what the community would support. It eventually will be making a recommendation to the county commissioners. Three candidates competing for the Republican nomination for a county commissioner seat each shared their thoughts at this early stage in the community's jail decision process. Jeff Wobser: "The communication and relationship part, to me, is huge. You have 15 elected officials from the judges to the commissioners and the engineer and everybody in between ... It's going to involve just about everybody in that 15-person lineup, from the sheriff to the judges to the folks at Job and Family Services because they are all going to be affected by what we build," he said. "So they all have to have a seat at the table." Building a new jail would be a multifaceted project, Wobser said. "Not only does it go to building a building, but it goes back to funding and staffing, and what do we do with the old building," Wobser said. "We can't just let it sit there. We can't abandon it. Can we reuse that space for something else?" Before county officials would proceed with construction of a new jail, they would have to determine whether that would be better than expanding and/or improving the existing one, he said. Jeffrey Hunker: "Personally, I think we need to build a new jail," Hunker said. "Funding it is a challenge. It's going to take a major promotion job, selling the need, sharing with the public why it's needed. Then hopefully the public will be supportive." The old jail does not meet current needs, he said. "We have a whole lot more, number one, female inmates; number two, mental health issues. Talking to a lot of the people that deal with mental health issues, our jail currently is not very conducive to helping the inmates," he said. "It's not the safest for the people going into the jail to help people, to work with people. "We need to put people behind bars that need to be behind bars," Hunker said. "We need to look at all, all routes, all avenues of how we can do that." Holly Frische: "We have a jail that has maintenance needs and when I look at the numbers that have been provided … your costs are going to almost be less to build new than it is going to be to maintain what we have," she said. "The likelihood of building new is probably more in the forefront, honestly, than maintaining. "After you get past which way to go, the next conversation is going to be with the community to understand why we're taking (one) step over (another) step, and how are we going to pay for it," Frische said. "I like having the jail downtown, but I understand it's a tight spot to be in now, especially since we built the (County Juvenile/Probate Court building, on West Main Cross Street, north of the jail)," she said.