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County to move ahead with new footprint for criminal justice center
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By Charlie Warner
Argus News Editor
Houston County will move forward with a new footprint concept for the proposed criminal justice center (CJC) which is planned to be constructed just east of the exiting courthouse.
At the May 12 meeting, the county board gave verbal support to have architects put together a working schematic that would be an L-shaped design, and be located about 30 feet east of the County Veterans’ War Memorial. A panhandle portion of the building would be east of the existing jail.
“Moving it 30 feet from the memorial is acceptable to the veterans,” Commissioner Larry Connery said. “I feel we have a workable concept now.”
Once the schematic is completed it will be reviewed by both the county and city’s attorneys. If the schematic clears that hurdle, it will be reviewed by the Caledonia City Council at their May 26 meeting.
Connery said the current plans have solved the memorial issue, retained the basic layout the county department heads feel is necessary and this allows for future expansion, if needed.
“We need to move forward with this,” Commissioner Dave Corcoran said. “We need to get the mediation settled, and part of that was to have our zoning issues and preliminary plans approved by the city by June 1. I feel we can still get this done, but we need to keep moving forward.”
Commissioner Tom Bjerke said he felt the county board needed to move forward with the footprint, but was not comfortable approving the entire plan until the entire county board could review it and find out how much it’s going to cost.
“Once we get the footprint and zoning issues approved, we need to take a hard look at the costs,” Bjerke said. “And we need to set some priorities. The county has been working on the jail for 14 years. And now we’re also looking at building the highway complex. If we don’t get the grant for the highway complex, I don’t think can do both. We can’t put that much of a burden on the taxpayers of this county.
“We need to look at the cost now, and agree on a figure, set that figure and go from there,” Bjerke continued.
County Finance Director Casey Bradley said the CJC project should be broken into three phases. The first is finalizing the design of it. The second is securing cost estimates. The third would be arranging the financing of it.
“If we don’t get this project up and running real soon, they’re going to shut us down,” Corcoran warned. “And if they do that, we’re really going to be spending money.” Corcoran said it costs the county approximately $20,000 a year to house a prisoner out of county for a year. The county is averaging 34 prisoners a day, which would cost Houston County taxpayers $680,000 per year just to house prisoners out of county.
A motion made by Commissioner Bob Augedahl and seconded by Corcoran to move forward with the L-shaped schematic and have it ready for the Caledonia City Council’s may 26 meeting was unanimously approved.
Radio study completed
The 165-page radio systems needs assessment and alternatives report (the county’s emergency radio systems study) was recently completed and presented to the board by Sheriff Doug Ely.
“There’s a lot of good reading here,” he said, as he held up the 3/4-inch thick report to the commissioners. “You’ll be tested next week on the contents.”
Ely said he would have Steve Borchart of the state radio board give a full presentation of the study in June.
Due to the dramatic topography of Houston County, state experts still are not certain if the new radio towers that were installed throughout the county will provide coverage to all areas.
“They really won’t know until the towers are fired up,”
Ely told the board. “We hope to have the towers operational within a couple of weeks. Then we will be able to conduct the final testing to see if we have the coverage required.”
You can contact Charlie Warner at
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A lot of similarities between Wabasha and Houston County.