Jail remains in spotlight

In his harshest language to date, he accused the two commissioners of being “either bungling incompetent or intentionally lying to the public and the Sheriff’s Office.” He also called Zoller “power hungry.”

And he again said the BOCC should have held a special election to include an option that the jail remain under the control of the Sheriff’s Department.

One of his key arguments was that Zoller lied to everyone in her March 29 announcement that the county was closing the jail and that inmates would be shipped to NORCOR by April 12.

A check of the meeting recording revealed Zoller did not say that she had a contract in her initial motion, which was defeated.

“To begin the discussion with my seatmates,” she said, “I will step down to make the motion to authorize staff to immediately move forward with all steps necessary to contract with NORCOR to provide jail services under RCW 70.48.090, with the intent to close the Klickitat County Jail, no later than April 12, 2024. I would entertain a second and open discussion.” 

And Zoller also did not say that prisoners would definitely be moved by April 12, only that such was the intent.

This followed comments by Commissioner Dan Christopher that he couldn’t vote on any such motion because this was a complete surprise to him and he had not seen any facts and figures on the consequences of such a move, the board moved into an unusual middle-of-the-meeting executive session.

It was after the board returned to regular session at that March 29 meeting that Anderson made the motion that did pass on a two-to-one vote.

“Madam Chair,” he said, “I would make a motion to direct staff to move forward with negotiations with NORCOR, providing jail services for Klickitat County under RCW 70.48.090. Staff and Commissioner Zoller are further authorized to negotiate with the cities of White Salmon, Bingen and Goldendale for jail services that we currently provide. The BOCC is directing staff to prepare a supplemental budget removing the jail sub-department, and moving the funds into a non-departmental budget. The BOCC is further directing staff to take all steps necessary to remove jail services from the Sheriff’s Department, bring forward a transition plan, and a resolution to the BOCC for adoption on April 2, 2024. This is with the intent that we close the jail, not later than April 12, 2024.”

When Songer again made the accusation of lying at the June 4 meeting, Anderson replied, “You are missing a very key word there, and that is intent. You said that we were lying, when the motion clearly stated it would begin negotiations, and there was an intent for closure, which allows staff to start negotiations.”

“You can color it anyway you want it,” Songer shot back. “In my opinion, the two of you lied to the Sheriff’s Office and the employees of that sheriff and the public at large.”

He said that, as a result, jail staff morale “had gone in the toilet,” and that their fate was his prime concern.

He also announced that, as of June 1, he had appointed Chief Jail Administrator Loren Culp to a different management position as chief criminal deputy. Songer had announced his intention to do so at a previous meeting, so that he could keep Culp on the staff if the BOCC were going to take over jail operations. Culp, he said, would remain in charge of the jail until such time as the operation might be transferred to a new department of corrections.

After another verbal skirmish, Anderson said, “Neither Commissioner Zoller nor I have talked about you personally. We have not put out any press releases about the sheriff or your staff. We have not made personal attacks on the radio, or in public or anything else. We have been acting professionally, looking at the facts, trying to deal with a situation which, honestly, none of the three of us sitting up here wanted to have put in front of us. We have a lot of other things we have to manage.”

“A special election would solve that, wouldn’t it?” the sheriff replied.

In other jail-related subjects, Anderson said the county will bring in a consultant to do a thorough examination of the jail facility and its policies and its procedures, and that he hoped the county’s insurance pool will be paying a portion of that cost. He also said they are looking for a transition manager who has done this in other Washington counties to oversee the transition.

“This is not the first county this has happened to in recent years,” he said. “It’s happened in Clark County; it’s happened in Benton County; it’s happened in Spokane County. And Garfield County just shut their jail and is contracting services out.”

During his portion of the agenda, Public Works Director Jeff Hunter reported that replacing the vent covers in the jail would cost around $30,000, and that funds for that project would come from money originally set aside to improve the jail lobby. He also suggested that the vents be thoroughly cleaned, as there is a big buildup of material in them that sometimes restricts airflow.

And there is an unusual twist to the story. Sherman County Sheriff Brad Lohrey, who operated NORCOR for five years, said it was ironic that Songer had contacted him about contracting with other jails. That’s because in the mid-1980s, problems Wasco County was having with its own jail led to it ending its agreement to accept Sherman County prisoners.

“We needed a place to go,” he said. “They actually had to change the law in Washington so they could accept our prisoners.”

That was in 1987, and the result was RCW 70.48.090 (2) which reads, “A city or county may contract for jail services with an adjacent county, or city in an adjacent county, in a neighboring state.”

Paragraph (4) of that same RCW also gives a city or county the ability to create a department of corrections to be in charge of the jail and of all persons confined therein. Without the creation of such a department, the jail falls under the jurisdiction of the chief law enforcement officer of the city or county.