City Annexes County Work-Release Center Despite Planners’ Recommendation, Council Moves To Aid Jail Expansion Effort

Against the wishes of neighbors and the advice of its own planning commission, the Coeur d’Alene City Council annexed the county’s work-release center Tuesday.

City leaders made their counterparts with the county sweat, but in the end they voted 4-1 to bring another portion of the Kootenai County Fairgrounds into the city.

Work has started there for a 126-bed work-release center along Dalton Avenue on the north end of the fairgrounds. It sits between the Kootenai County Juvenile Detention Center and Coeur d’Alene High School.

The center is the first part of the county’s $12 million jail expansion approved by 61 percent of county voters May 23. A half-cent sales tax will raise the money over the next five years.

“It would have caused an interesting situation” had the vote gone the other way, Kootenai County Commissioner Dick Compton said.

Compton, Sheriff Rocky Watson and Administrator Tom Taggart all argued Tuesday that the work-release center is needed to ease overcrowding in the Kootenai County Jail.

The work-release center - where inmates convicted of minor crimes sleep at night after working at their jobs during the day - should be completed late this fall and will allow the county to stop shipping inmates to Bonner and Shoshone counties.

To solve overcrowding, Watson in December started shipping inmates out of county - a practice that is costing about $30,000 a month.

The Coeur d’Alene Planning Commission on May 9 voted 5-0 to deny the annexation request and a conditional use request for the work-release center.

“We concluded that this zone was incompatible with the character of the surrounding neighborhood,” Planning Commission member Susan Snedaker wrote in the majority decision.

Councilman Dave Walker - the only no vote Tuesday - said he didn’t appreciate being put in a position to decide between the county’s interests and unhappy residents.

“The jail needs to be out by the airport and not in a neighborhood or residential area,” Walker said.

Sharon Nelson lives directly across Dalton Avenue from the work-release center.

“Most of these work-release prisoners do not have driver’s licenses. They will be walking on our streets to get to and from work,” Nelson said. “I am very concerned about the safety of my family and children.”

The county needed the city to annex the land so it can hook into the city sewer and water.

Both Compton and Taggart acknowledged that the county could have done a better job explaining the project to city planners.

“We should have been here to address some of these concerns before,” he said. “But it’s a community problem we all have.

Taggart said the county has received several zone changes in that area from the city.

“Every time it seemed to be a routine process,” Taggart said. “I think we underestimated the Planning Commission’s interest in this project.”

Councilman Chris Copstead, who voted for the annexation, pointed out the county did not consider what effect the work release center would have on property values.

“I really have a concern for the residents in that area,” he said, pointing out that the jail, juvenile center are already nearby. “But because we are not bringing in new uses, the neighborhood is not changing.”