Allen County commissioners continued to mull over whether to pull out of a consortium with the Girard Juvenile Detention Center, at their meeting Tuesday.
The agreement requires a $75,000 annual commitment.
Though current law has changed the parameters of incarceration at the facility, Commissioner Bruce Symes still sees how they could need it in certain instances.
Senate Bill 367 makes it so that only the most egregious crimes such as murder would qualify a youth to be incarcerated at the center.
We still had two kids there as of last week, that still met the criteria. This year we have had 23% of the detention centers intake, which is down and they expect it to keep going down. But if we pull out of this now, and we have a kid commit some horrible crime, it could be much more expensive to house this kid during a lengthy trial, Symes said.
Symes explained the county currently pays $140 per day to hold offenders at the facility.
I spoke to Commissioner Nick Ruhl from Bourbon County and he said they had considered getting out of the agreement and they contacted Franklin County and it was going to be a lot more expensive than the Girard Center. He said it was $250 a day and that was if they had a bed available, Symes said. He said if we had a case where a kid needed to be in jail for a long time awaiting trial and we couldnt place him somewhere, then we would really be in a pickle. We would have to build a facility.
RANDY RASA, a board member with Thrive Allen County and who helped put together the active transportation plan, known as ABC Trails for Allen, Bourbon and
Crawford counties, reported they will be changing the name to Prairie Pathways.
We want to make it more inclusive to additional counties to come on board in the future, Rasa said. Our first project is marking bike routes between Iola, Fort Scott and Pittsburg. Part of that is soliciting bids for a signage package. We are trying to brand this so it will be recognizable. But we will need to get with Sheriff Bryan Murphy to talk about sign placement.
Rasa also said part of the ABC Trails plan was to increase the educational possibilities at Lehigh Portland Trails.
We wanted to make that an outdoor educational resource for the community and the schools, Rasa said. I have been working with the community college and USD 257 and we have an upcoming third grade field trip out there, where we will try to get kids interested in what is available out there.
Rasa said they will begin working on another project in the near future, where they will mark the Zebulon Pike National Historic Trail.
In 1806, Zebulon Pike led an expedition from St. Louis west to explore newly purchased land from the Louisiana Purchase. He traveled through Bourbon and Allen and the rest of Kansas then. The U.S. Congress authorized a study saying this is possibly a national historic trail. So we want to engage with our local historical societies, he said.
