SIOUX CITY -- Sioux City council members expressed opposition Tuesday to city taxpayers footing the bill for a bus route to serve the new Woodbury County Law Enforcement Center.
"I just feel very, very strongly about it -- that it's not the city's responsibility to provide this transportation. It's not the taxpayers' responsibility to provide it. That should have been built into their plan when they had their plan developed, and for some reason, they left it out," Councilwoman Julie Schoenherr said during a council retreat discussion session held at the Siouxland Expo Center.
Woodbury County Sheriff Chad Sheehan told the LEC board in September that it would cost "several hundred thousand dollars a year" to add a part-time bus route at the new LEC at 3701 28th St.
During that meeting, Sheehan expressed concerns about not only how inmates will get from the jail to downtown after they're released, but also how citizens, without their own transportation, will get to the LEC to serve on juries, attend trials or conduct administrative business at the sheriff's office.
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Previously, when inmates were released from the former downtown jail at 407 Seventh St., and no one was available to pick them up, they could walk a short distance to a Sioux City Transit transfer point at the Martin Luther King Jr. Transportation Center.
"I think the LEC should have thought about this beforehand. I think a solution for them is to purchase some kind of mini-bus-type things, hire a couple of drivers. You've got a route that's constantly going, and then maybe you have one for ad hoc, where somebody might, you know, get out of some proceeding or something and need a ride and they can pay to go wherever they're going or have certain stops," Schoenherr said. "I will be a strong 'no' against any kind of city involvement that costs the city more money. It's not fair."
Mayor Bob Scott said asking city taxpayers to fund a bus route on top of paying for 85% of the jail is "not acceptable" to him.
"The reality is, we're 85% of the taxes they collect. They're not asking Bronson to pay if they collect a prisoner. They're not asking Danbury to pay. They're asking us to pay for everybody, and I'm not for that," he said.
The new jail, on the northeast outskirts of the city is about 2.5 miles from the two closest bus stops -- at Seventh Street and Lewis Boulevard or the Walmart Supercenter on Floyd Boulevard.
Assistant City Manager Mike Collett said the only added benefit to a bus route that serves the LEC would be providing the Lake Forest Mobile Home Community with access to the transit system. However, he said it would be "tough" for the city to provide a route that goes past Lake Forest and doesn't also serve the LEC.
"I would not want Lake Forest people -- not the children, not elderly people -- to ride with people who are just getting out of jail," Schoenherr said. "I understand that (Lake Forest residents) want the bus route, and maybe we can look at that some other time."
Collett noted that bus service cannot be reserved for certain members of the public, since the city receives federal money to provide it.
"So I can't segregate and only take inmates or only take Lake Forest people," he said.
Scott said if the Woodbury County Board of Supervisors wants to solve the LEC's public transit problem, they should pick up the phone and ask for a joint meeting with the council.
"So far, they've shown a willingness to not want to do one thing, and there wouldn't be a jail there today if we hadn't gone in with them on that jail. They only got 57% or 58%. It would have failed. We wouldn't be talking about any of these issues, because there wouldn't be a jail."
The Woodbury County Law Enforcement Center had its "grand opening" on Sept. 18, after nearly 10 years of work that included numerous setbacks and cost overruns. All inmates were moved from the former jail to the new jail by mid-October.
For years, county officials dealt with a multitude of deficiencies, compliance issues, operations costs and lack of space in the former jail which was built in 1987.
The roughly $70 million, 122,000-square-foot LEC can hold up to 448 inmates, which nearly doubles the roughly 234 inmate-capacity of the former jail across the street from the county courthouse.
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