Filing a lawsuit or starting over in a quest for land that can house a new Vigo County Jail are options being considered by the Vigo County Commissioners after the Terre Haute City Council on Thursday voted 8-1 to deny rezoning for one proposed jail site.
The county is under a federal judge’s order to submit a report to the court by Wednesday on the status of its zoning issue. A status hearing on the federal lawsuit is slated for Feb. 13.
“We have not decided what to do and it will probably be next week before we discuss where we go and what we will do,” Commissioner President Judith Anderson said Friday.
“We definitely have to wait to hear what the judge’s opinion will be on this and her feelings,” Anderson said of U.S. District Court Chief Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson.
“Then we will have a better feel for what we have to do and where we have to go,” Anderson said.
“We have it down to where we need it … and we have it all in place,” Anderson said of the former International Paper site off Prairieton Road in Terre Haute, “but that was stopped” when the City Council denied the county’s zoning request.
“It is more wait and see,” Anderson added.
“And more dollar signs,” said Commissioner Jon Marvel. “The meter is ticking,” referring to the federal lawsuit on the unconstitutional conditions at the current jail, including overcrowding.
Marvel said the county has already invested in a jail design, and it would cost more money to get a new design.
The county, Marvel said, owns land close to the courthouse in the former International Paper site, and it would accommodate a single-level, pod-design jail with room for future expansion.
Anderson said the county may have to sell the International Paper site “to have money to find some other place.”
“We don’t know yet,” Anderson said, again saying commissioners will wait on a response from the federal court.
County attorney Michael Wright said time likely will not allow a state lawsuit challenging the city’s rezoning decision.
The county in November filed a timeline in the federal lawsuit for a new jail facility to be fully operational in April 2021. Construction is to start in July.
The county has told the federal court it is working to construct a jail of 484 beds with an estimated cost of $45 million to $50 million, excluding financing costs.
And while a status hearing on the lawsuit is slated for February, Wright said, “I think it is likely [Judge Magnus-Stinson] may want some update before then or some written response for what the siting [status] is,” Wright said. “I can see [the judge] wanting some more explanation on what is in store” before the status hearing.
Wright said a lawsuit challenging the City Council’s rezoning vote would have to be filed through a state court, and that option may be time prohibitive.
“You can ask the federal court to hear the issue, but that doesn’t mean that they are going to,” Wright said. “You would have to ask [the judge] to exercise supplemental jurisdiction and on an issue like this that is purely local, I would be hesitant to be confident as I think the first question [the judge] would ask is: ‘Are there any alternatives’ for a jail site?
“If you said yes, then [the judge’s] answer would be to either go out and buy that property privately or condemn it,” Wright said, adding the judge will be looking for solutions.
“I would be pretty skeptical on [Magnus-Stinson] imposing her judgment over that of a legislatively elected body,” he said.
A lawsuit in state court likely would not likely move at the pace necessary to satisfy the timeline in the existing federal lawsuit, he added.
“I think it is a matter of looking at what are the options and which of the options best gets this thing resolved in as little time as possible,” Wright said.
County commissioners will make that decision, he added.
The federal lawsuit was filed by attorney Michael Sutherlin in October 2016 on behalf of inmate Jauston Huerta and others. It claimed the jail population regularly exceeded a 268-inmate cap set in 2002 to settle another complaint regarding overcrowding and that conditions were such they violated the Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual punishment) and the 14th Amendment (due process and equal protection under the law).