ACTION CONTRADICTS EARLIER STATEMENTS
In a move that has not been communicated to the local public by county officials, a Platte County representative has discussed a deal with a neighboring county about potentially housing that county’s inmates in the proposed new Platte County Jail.
The Clinton County Leader, in its June 6 edition, reported that Joey McLiney, Platte County’s financial advisor, has met with the Clinton County Commission trying to get them to sign an agreement with Platte County that would guarantee Clinton County “the right of first refusal” on any open beds in what would be Platte County’s new 471-bed proposed jail in Downtown Platte City.
Beth McPherson of The Weston Chronicle reported on that same Clinton County news story in her column in last week’s Chronicle.
Platte County voters will decide the fate of the proposed new three-story jail at an election on Aug. 6. The two-question proposal would create a new half cent sales tax that would last 20 years and would raise $408 million. It would be the largest tax increase in the history of Platte County.
Platte County’s commissioners had not made the public aware of the discussions with Clinton County. A posting by county officials on the Facebook page “Platte County Missouri” insinuates that the county is not looking at renting bed space.
Under one of many ads the county is paying for on Facebook, a reader by the name of Gary Pixler says “Vote No. Quit housing other counties inmates.” In response, the Facebook page Platte County Missouri, with presiding commissioner Scott Fricker as administrator of the page, responds: “This proposed facility is not intended to house inmates from other counties. It’s sized to support the county’s needs for the next 25 years.”
In a story written by Brett Adkison in the June 6 Clinton County Leader, it is reported that “serving as an advisor to Platte County, McLiney said Thursday that the new jail could create more capacity than needed, which could benefit Clinton County, one of several public entities in the region–including the City of Kansas City–that has had issues housing its full prisoner load.”
The Clinton County Leader story went on to report: “McLiney said that an agreement between the two counties could give Clinton County the right of first refusal on any open beds and a set per diem cost, while Platte County by including a rural area like Clinton County in its service area–could qualify for additional federal funding.”
At a jail tax public forum held Monday night in Parkville, Scott Fricker, Platte County’s presiding commissioner, was asked about the county renting out inmate bed space to other entities to in effect run what the questioner described as a “jail hotel.”
“Is that possible? Yes,” Fricker responded. “We’re going to have excess capacity, clearly,” Fricker added. “You know, for some time.”
Fricker added that housing inmates from Clinton County or other entities “is not a bankable source of revenue in terms of bond financing. We can’t rely on it. We don’t know what it is. To the extent we get some revenue from that, we’re going to consider it gravy, it will go toward operations, it will go toward paying down the debt, those sorts of things.”
Fricker’s remark that the county knows it will have excess capacity for “some time” is in contrast to information sent out in a series of mailers by the county commission. Platte County Commission earlier this year voted to spend $80,000 of taxpayer money to fund what it calls a voter “educational” campaign. In one of those informational pieces, the county states: “417 beds are needed now.” But the 2023 average daily population of the existing Platte County jail was only 195 inmates.
Bill Garnos, the county’s jail expert, in a 2023 report projects that when the proposed new jail opens in 2028 the county should expect an average daily population of 238 inmates, which is 179 fewer than the county’s claim of “417 needed now.”
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