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Posted: 8:21 PM- Oxbow Jail is out.
The Salt Lake County Council won't put a penny into the languishing lockup next year despite first-year Democratic Sheriff Jim Winder's insistence that the county soon will need it to relieve the population squeeze on the nearby maximum-security Adult Detention Center (ADC).
"I'm extremely frustrated," Winder said Tuesday. "The county is not taking into consideration our external partners - the cities, the judiciary - in making this decision."
The Republican-led council slammed the door on the deteriorating South Salt Lake jail Tuesday, denying the $5.9 million Winder sought to reopen the facility and the $610,000 that Democratic Mayor Peter Corroon had recommended for upgrades and repairs.
Democratic Councilman Randy Horiuchi urged his conservative colleagues - who opposed Oxbow funding on a 5-4 partisan vote - to keep the jail "battle ready."
But Republicans balked, saying a criminal-justice master plan should come first.
"We are going to need to open Oxbow eventually," Councilman Jeff Allen said. "The question is: Do we want to put money now to gear it up for opening or do we want to wait and see how it is going to fit into the scheme of things?"
The sheriff continues to shout for funding for the minimum-security jail - not just to warehouse wrongdoers, but to provide vocational training, drug treatment and other life skills to low-level offenders. The jail could accommodate 564 inmates. Winder suggested opening just 184 beds.
He then would offset Oxbow's cost with 100 new federal prisoners at the ADC, which would generate about $2 million annually.
But the council didn't go along.
"I'm not convinced that Oxbow is the facility that we need long term," said Republican Councilman Michael Jensen.
What the council gave Winder was an acute medical unit at the ADC with a dozen new hires. It gave him 18 new patrol deputies in the unincorporated county, with eight of them contingent on Cottonwood Heights sticking with the Sheriff's Office instead of forming its own police department. And it allocated hundreds of thousands more for GPS ankle monitors, upgraded communication equipment and new vehicles.
But the loss of Oxbow has the sheriff steamed.
"To say we are going to hold off and formulate another plan," Winder said, "does not address what is a critical need today."
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