SHORELINE
Siting a municipal jail in Shoreline would be appalling and ridiculous, residents told officials Dec. 11 during a public forum at Shoreline Community College.
The disapproval continued throughout the three hour meeting attended by approximately 100 Shoreline and Lake Forest Park residents. Many wanted to know why the Aldercrest Annex property at 2545 NE 200th St. is one of six potential sites for a single 640-bed municipal jail facility, despite the fact the surplussed School District property is not yet for sale (see related story).
“I just have to wonder who the genius was who picked this site in the middle of a residential neighborhood with schools, children … how many (sites) are plunked down in the middle of a residential neighborhood with homes overlooking the site?” Shoreline resident Bob Holmes asked.
Although the site of the new jail is up for discussion, the need to build a new facility is not, according to Catherine Cornwall, senior policy advisor for the city of Seattle.
Twenty-three cities, including Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond, Seattle and Shoreline, must replace jail beds that will be lost once a contract with King County ends in 2012.
In order to find a solution to replace the jail beds, city staff formed the North/East Cities (NEC) municipal jail planning group and hired consultant Carter Goble Lee at the beginning of the year to access the cities’ misdemeanor jail needs.
Six potential sites, including three in Seattle, one in Bellevue and another in unincorporated King County near the borders of Kirkland and Redmond, are under review along with the Shoreline location.
The five cities represent the need for about 90 percent of jail beds used by Northeast cities, Cornwall explained. The NEC felt it wasn’t right for one city to have all of the jail sites and is legally required to study multiple sites based on criteria for acreage, adjacent usages, availability of regional access and ease of acquisition.
“It’s a challenge to find a site that meets all the criteria,” Cornwall said. “We recognize that all of the sites have their tradeoff.”
A jail can be a “good neighbor” she added, noting that the description sounds like a contradiction. The new jail will bring new jobs to the area, lead to a greater police presence and can be architecturally designed so that it does not look like a jail.
“A National Department of Justice study found that property values are not affected by a jail,” Cornwall said.
Few residents agreed.
“If this residential jail is such a great thing, I’m surprised other communities aren’t falling over themselves to get our regional jail,” Shoreline resident Joe Blanchard said.
The Fircrest campus on 15th Avenue Northeast was used for institutional housing in the past and would be a better location for a jail, he added. Although the Fircrest campus scored high on a prior list of possible sites, it was taken out of consideration because the property is owned by the state and is undergoing its own comprehensive planning process.
Other residents expressed concerns about the proximity of the site to schools.
“Would you want to send your child to a school that has a jail right across the street from it?” Cathy Steenstra, school director for the Living Wisdom School on Northeast 200th Street said. “Given the choice would you buy a house next to a jail or one that wasn’t (near a jail)?”
Shoreline resident LaNita Wacker was the only attendee to speak favorably of a jail being constructed on the old school grounds.
“This location is not unusual to the Shoreline community,” Wacker said. “For over 20 years we had a misdemeanant jail in this community located on Fircrest campus … there was no problem.”
A jail in the city would be an economic boon for the city with work release programs, access to probation officers and attorneys, she added.
The NEC should address concerns by taking the site off the list of those under consideration, Lake Forest Park resident Lynda Ransley said, spurring applause.
“I realize this site does have some advantages — it’s large, easy to develop and will probably be cheaper (than others),” she said. “But I believe we will all collectively lose in our property values.”
The site is the least centrally located of all the potential sites and the furthest point from downtown Seattle, said Mike Kersch Baum of Lake Forest Park. He expressed concern that a jail would not always only hold those guilty of committing misdemeanor offenses.
“…Maybe they’re misdemeanants today; maybe they have plea bargained down to a misdemeanor. Maybe they committed a misdemeanant this time but felon in the past,” he said.
The NEC will continue to look at all six sites throughout next year and a preferred site will be identified after a final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process is complete in 2010, according to Cornwall. A scoping meeting focusing on the EIS for the Shoreline site is scheduled at 6 p.m. on Jan. 7, 2009, at the Shoreline Community College Theater. The college is located at 16101 Greenwood Ave. N. in Shoreline.
The NEC group posts information, meeting notes and videos about the process and solicits feedback from residents at www.necmunicipaljail.org.
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