Local towns should write a joint letter opposing the construction of a $38-million Grafton County correctional facility, the Hanover Board of Selectman said on Monday, explaining that residents cannot afford the tax increase required to pay for the new facility during the current economic crisis. Plans for the facility's construction are currently on hold as the Grafton County Delegation's Executive Committee waits for a decision in a related, but separate, civil lawsuit.
The county's existing jail, a section of which dates to 1896, is overcrowded and will likely be even more crowded in the future, according to Catherine Mulholland, the committee's chairwoman. The jail's current average population of 100 is projected to double in the next 20 years.
"It's an accident waiting to happen," Mulholland said. "And the only reason the new jail did not get built last year was the lawsuit that stopped everything dead in its tracks."
Julia Griffin, Hanover town manager and author of a December 2008 letter opposing the construction, agreed that the jail must be replaced but argued that now is not the time for such a project, which will require a county tax increase. The committee should postpone construction and look for ways to reduce costs, she said.
The county already reduced estimated costs by $14 million after a two-year planning and consulting period beginning in 2006, Mulholland said. The economic crisis is one of the many reasons to proceed with construction, she said, arguing the depressed economy has lowered construction costs.
"Because of hard economic times, we're actually able to build for somewhat less than $38 million, an opportunity which will probably never occur again," Mulholland said. "It would be beneficial if people could look at this a little more long-term."
The new facility will also decrease existing program costs, including inmate medical treatment, Mulholland said. Corrections Superintendent Glenn Libby estimated that medical costs currently total about $190,000 a year.
"This is part of the rationale for a new jail -- we won't have to keep shipping people off to the emergency room," Mulholland said.
The new jail will also provide more space for various supplementary programs, Libby said.
Libby cited the jail's GED program, the Grafton County Drug Court and the Community Corrections Electronic Monitoring program as successes of the past 10 years.
"We had close to 20 people earn their GED in the last six months of 2008," Libby said. "Those statistics mean something to me, but I'm sure that to the average taxpayer and the average town manager, they're of little significance."
Insufficient correctional programs create a "revolving door" effect, Mulholland said. Without a successful rehabilitation program, released inmates will "go out and do it all over again," she said.
Griffin said she is sympathetic to Libby and Mulholland's efforts to build the jail.
"Glenn's got a population that doesn't quite tug at the heartstrings the way school kids or senior citizens might," she said. "We know correctional facilities are not high on the priority list for most citizens, but certainly also know the need to replace it."
This need must be put on hold until taxpayers can afford a tax increase, even if that means the total project costs will be higher in the future, Griffin said.
"Because the only people who vote on state expenditures are the elected representatives of Grafton County, residents have no idea what's about to hit them in terms of the increases of the county tax rate," Griffin said. "We shouldn't be afraid of arming our residents with information so that if they have a concern, they can do something about it."
The Grafton County towns of Ashland, Canaan, Haverhill, Lincoln, Lyman and Warren also sent letters of opposition to the committee, and Griffin hopes the proposed joint letter will more strongly resonate with representatives and generate serious discussion about lowering building costs or postponing construction.
Regardless of the letters' success, construction cannot proceed until the current lawsuit against Grafton County is settled. The plaintiffs, Robert Hull and John Babiarz, charged the delegation with violating New Hampshire's Right-to-Know Law during the Feb. 11, 2008 meeting where approval for the construction bond passed by one vote.
The direct motivation for the suit is not to block the jail's construction, Hull said, but to defend citizens' rights under the Right-to-Know Law, which the New Hampshire Bar Association's web site defines as "the right to access public meetings and records under New Hampshire and federal law."
Hull believes that during a five-minute recess after an initial failed vote, members of the delegation illegally discussed the conflict at hand before then voting in favor of the construction. Although the suit's judicial referee ruled on Nov. 24, 2008, that the vote in favor of construction was legal, the plaintiffs will likely appeal the case to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, Mulholland said. Such an appeal will likely prolong the standstill for another two and a half months, she said.
"Until there is a ruling, we cannot approach the towns' requests to delay [construction]," Mulholland said.
Although it was not their initial intention, the plaintiffs' actions have helped the towns' goal of delaying tax increases.
"I've gotten congratulations from a lot of people who are happy that I've stopped this expensive jail project from going forward," Hull said.
The original version of this article incorrectly stated that medical treatment costs at Grafton County's existing jail total about $50,000 a month. In fact, medical costs total about $190,000 a year, or about $16,000 a month.
