Face the challenge
Providing schools for youngsters, hospitals for the infirm, recreational facilities, health, sanitation, and improved roadways are issues the public accepts.
But there's another challenge to address: adequate housing for the incarcerated.
While all accept the responsibility of educating students, providing for the elderly and aged, and improving infrastructure; many don't realize there also is a legal and ethical responsibility to provide for prisoners.
With Marion County deeply wounded financially due to mismanagement on the issue of trash disposal, it's a tough time to be faced with expanded housing for court prisoners.
But it must be done. Law requires the county to provide. There is no choice.
Like it or not, the county's responsibility for having an adequate jail is higher on the list than streets, sewer lagoons, water treatment plants, education, and trash disposal.
Marion County's facility for court prisoner housing is less than adequate. The jail needs to be expanded. The county is paying a big price for moving prisoners to other parts of the state, back and forth. That money would be better spent paying the price to expand our jail.
We must face the challenge before it becomes a mandate.
— BILL MEYER
