GREENFIELD — Only one candidate for the sheriff is solidly behind the controversial proposal for a new county jail.
One of the four contenders for the office is adamantly against the project that has colored this season’s political races. The other two find themselves somewhere in the middle, calling for expansion of current facilities at a lower cost.
It came as no surprise: The county’s overcrowded jail and the proposal for a new facility and renovated county buildings — with a price tag of up to $55 million — were the focus of the debate Thursday night among the Republican candidates for Hancock County’s next sheriff.
No Democrats have filed for the office.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryA crowd of voters flocked to the Hancock County Public Library to hear the four candidates — Wayne Addison, Brad Burkhart, Donnie Munden and Donnie Smith — discuss their plans for the future of the county’s largest law enforcement agency.
Each candidate discussed the prevention, education, treatment and enforcement initiatives they hope to bring to the office; and weighed in on whether to build a new jail to alleviate overcrowding.
Burkhart is for it. Munden is against it. Addison and Smith are somewhere in between.
An upcoming referendum asks voters’ permission to increase property taxes to finance the construction of a new facility and remodel several other criminal justice offices. County leaders want to borrow up to $55 million to build a jail nearly three times larger than the current jail, making more space for inmates and mental health and recovery programs.
Addison, who served 35 years as the county’s chief probation officer before retiring to run for sheriff, was quick to remind the audience that current proposal deals with more than just the jail; several other buildings would be remodeled to better the current criminal justice system.
Addison believes offering more treatment programs will ease the overcrowding, and he pointed out he hired the probation officers who run many of the treatment programs currently offered in the jail.
If the referendum fails, perhaps the county can build a drug or mental health treatment facility, a place dedicated to helping people, he said.
Burkhart is the current sheriff’s chief deputy, with more than 30 years’ experience with the department, and has been a proponent of building a new jail since he joined the sheriff’s jail administration seven years ago.
The current facility is overcrowded, understaffed and out of compliance with staffing regulations — all issues that could result in a federal lawsuit, Burkhart said. If the referendum fails, the problems the jail faces aren’t going to go away, he said.
“We need to do something now,” Burkhart said.
Munden now oversees the department’s day-shift patrol officers; but he’s held numerous leadership positions in the department in his 30 years of service, including a stint as acting sheriff.
He told the crowd he’s against the current $55 million proposal because he believes it will be a big burden on taxpayers. A better service to the community would be to expand Hancock County Community Corrections and give more low-level, nonviolent offenders access to home detention and work release, he said.
As an alternative to building a new jail, Munden has floated the idea of leasing an empty building in town, like the former Marsh grocery store in Greenfield, and converting it to community corrections. It’s larger and much closer to the employers work release inmates would work for, he said.
Smith, a road patrol deputy, also wants to see the county expand its current work release and home detention programs to decrease the jail population and rehabilitate offenders.
Amid conversations about addictions and mental health treatment, Smith said the jail should be for punishment.
“The name on the door says Hancock County Jail, not the Hancock County treatment center or rehabilitation center,” Smith said. “You shouldn’t want to go there, and if you do, you don’t ever want to go back. Jail needs to be jail.”
Smith worries building a new jail will be only a temporary fix. Eventually, that building, too, will be overcrowded, he said.
The debate closed with each candidate asking for a vote on May 8, if not before. Early voting starts Tuesday.
