Debate over city jail becomes contentious

By Don Bradley

The two sides in the fight over the proposed public safety sales tax squared off Monday in a hotly spirited debate that packed a meeting room at the Red Bridge library.

When it started, Kansas City Council member Melissa Patterson Hazley told the audience she didn’t think the tax, which would fund a new city jail, was contentious.

Halfway through the evening, she acknowledged she had that wrong.

The event, hosted by the South Kansas City Alliance, also included debate on the Kansas City School District’s request for a $474 million bond package for capital improvements.

On the pro side of the quarter-cent public safety sales tax issue that voters will decide April 8, Hazley and new Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson told the audience that Kansas City needs a detention center for crimes that don’t rise to state prosecution which would land offenders in county jail.

They mentioned thefts under $750, assaults without a weapon, some drug charges, bar fights and automobile “sideshows.” Often, these are repeat offenders.”

“They are fully aware we don’t have a detention center,” Johnson said.

The con side was represented by Amaia Cook, executive director of Decarcerate KC, and Vernon Howard, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Kansas City.

They argued that the minor offenses that would cause people to land in city jail are more about poverty, mental health, substance abuse and lack of jobs. Nothing in the proposed tax addresses these larger societal issues, they said.

Also, Cook said the tax would only pay for the jail construction and that the city would have to come back later and ask taxpayers for millions more in operating costs.

She added that the average stay in city jail is five days.

“So, we’re going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on people who will spend five days in jail?” Cook asked.

The debate even got around to talking about naked people going into the infamous Sun Fresh store at Prospect and Linwood.

“And throwing groceries at people,” Hazley said.

But the city doesn’t have any place to put these offenders.

Howard countered that a new jail would mean a lot of construction money and jobs.

“But it wouldn’t do anything to make the people around Prospect and Linwood feel safer,” he said.

He said he has spent his life trying to steer young black men away from crime, but there are no preventive measures in this ballot measure.

The proposed tax is actually a 20-year extension of an existing sales tax. It was started years ago as a means to fund capital improvements for the city’s police and fire departments.

Before the actual debate, a representative from both departments spoke at Monday’s event about where that money goes and the vital needs it meets.

The ballot measure requires a simple majority for passage.

Revenue from the tax has been used for facility improvements, including construction of new police patrol headquarters. It also goes toward the purchase of police, fire and other emergency vehicles.

This time, funds will be used to improve the city’s emergency 911 system and capital improvements, but the centerpiece is the proposed jail.

Ever since Kansas City closed its municipal jail years ago, the city has shipped prisoners to county jails in rural areas, such as Nevada in Vernon County, more than 90 minutes away.

That makes jurisprudence more difficult, said Municipal Judge Martina Peterson. Sometimes the duty is to get people released as soon as possible.

“It’s easier for me to get them out of jail if the jail were here,” she said.

The remote boarding costs money. Also, if a prisoner is deemed dangerous, the other county might refuse to take them.

The result is that police sometimes write the offender a ticket instead of arresting them.

Johnson said people should not think that the new Jackson County jail currently under construction will offer Kansas City some relief.

“As soon as it opens, it’s at capacity,” Johnson said.

She said her office is now taking more domestic violence cases that previously would have stayed in city court. That at least separates the offender from the victim.

She said the lack of arrest and jail time for offenders of all kinds, including the sideshows (illegal “burnout” gatherings on city streets) is reason to support a new jail.

“We are doing the population a disservice,” Johnson said.

Cook countered that residents are already paying for the new county jail so they shouldn’t have to pay for two.

The city would be better off, she said, investing money in substance abuse treatment, mental health, jobs and housing. She said that 70 percent of city prisoners have received treatment from University Health Behavioral Health.

“The dire need is to invest in prevention, not incarceration,” Cook said.

Most of the full house left after the tax debate and before the school district presentation. Probably because most in attendance reside in the Center, Grandview and Hickman Mills school districts.