A day after a federal judge threatened to put Fulton County commissioners in the U.S. Penitentiary, several of them said they have not neglected the years-long problem of finding space for inmates in the over-crowded local jail.
Reactions Friday to U.S. District Judge Marvin Shoob’s ultimatum ranged from anger and defiance to whimsy.
“I didn’t worry about it until he said he would take the cell phones away,” Commissioner Tom Lowe said. “The minute he said he would take my cell phone, that’s when it got serious for me. I don’t worry about jail time.”
Shoob, his frustration obvious, met Thursday with all sides of a 2004 lawsuit that alleged the jail was crowded, dirty and dangerous. The settlement negotiated in 2006 set population limits and minimum staffing levels but jail officials have struggled unsuccessfully to meet the terms of the agreement.
The judge said he has had enough.
Shoob said he would lock up commissioners if they continued to “drag their feet” in the on-again-off-again discussions with the city to buy the Atlanta Jail.
“I am prepared to do something," Shoob said. "I’ve talked to the warden at the Atlanta Penitentiary and he’s got room for everybody I send over. And they [commissioners] won’t have cellphones."
The city jail currently holds about 200 city ordinance violators and another 900 Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees. Atlanta Chief Operating Officer Peter Aman said the city would lease back 200 beds in the jail for ordinance violators if the county buys the lock-up and the immigration detainees are moved to other jails around the state.
Negotiations over the years have run into several problems. In one instance, the City Council wanted assurances that city jail employees would be kept on by the sheriff, who runs the county jail.
“The city wants to sell the jail to the county,” Aman told the judge on Thursday.
Most recently money has been the problem.
The county expects a $35 million shortfall in the current budget. In previous discussions, the deal would involve the county assuming the debt on the city jail, which would cost Fulton about $2 million a year over the next 15 years. It would also cost Fulton taxpayers another $23 million annually to staff and operate it, according to Chief Jailer Mark Adger.
The judge’s jail expert, Calvin Lightfoot, said the county would have to build an entirely new jail, perhaps adjacent to the lock up on Rice Street, within the next few years.
Already, the county spent $60 million to renovate the existing jail, one of the requirements in the settlement of the lawsuit. Taxpayers spent more than $42 million to house inmates in jails in other cities and counties between 2006-2010. So far this year the county has spent more than $3.4 million.
On Friday, 315 inmates were relocated in other jails but still many inmates are sleeping on the floor of the Fulton County Jail.
“We’re running a jail like a Third World country,” Shoob said. “I don’t care where they get the money.”
Lowe said three commissioners had been tapped to advance the process.
"We’re working on it,” Lowe said. “We have a special committee set up and there’s talk going on all the time. ... It is something I’m concerned with but I’m not losing any sleep over him putting me in jail.”
Commission Vice Chairman Bill Edwards said the county reached out to the city a week ago with a suggestion that they resume talks.
“It’s not like Fulton County is sitting back and saying ‘I don’t want to have anything to do with it,"' Edwards said. “Nobody’s going to force me to do something that doesn’t make sense."
But he said any deal would have to “best serve” Atlanta and Fulton.
“You don’t have to threaten me with the penitentiary,” Edwards said. “I’m not moved. We’re trying to negotiate in good faith ...
“Am I afraid? No. Because I’m going to do everything that I can do. Locking up commissioners don’t get you the money for that jail. Threats aren’t going to get it.”
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