HANCOCK — Issues from the expandability of a proposed Houghton County Jail addition to expanding the millage to include Keweenaw County voters were on the minds of attendees at a forum on the proposal hosted by the Copper Country League of Women Voters in Hancock Tuesday. 

The League hosted three forums in Laird Township, Hancock and Calumet to discuss problems with the current jail, district court and sheriff’s office, as well as to get information from the public about how they want to address the issue. 

The county has worked on a design for a jail addition that would be built behind the Houghton County Courthouse in the site of the parking deck. It is considering a vote on a millage which would be on the November ballot. 

Sheriff Brian McLean said the new proposal would include about 66 beds. The work camp would be relocated to the current jail site, and would include 30 beds for men and 12 for women. 

Asked when another expansion would be needed, McLean said it would be tough to project even 10 years out. As it stands, the jail has fewer beds per capita than any in the Upper Peninsula. Dickinson County, which has about 10,000 fewer people, has an average daily population around 90, versus 42 between Houghton County’s jail and work camp, McLean said. 

Aside from the work camp, the county also keeps the main jail population down by just writing tickets for minor incidents such as traffic offenses and small larcenies. Some jails in the Lower Peninsula have stopped taking drunk drivers, McLean said. 

“We haven’t gotten to that point, but it may come sooner or later,” he said. “I can’t really look in a crystal ball, but I can be assured that within 20 years, you may need more beds, so expandability’s probably very important.”

Expanding the jail is possible, but would require going either up or over. If another story is added with cells, that will double the staffing required, McLean said. In one of the past plans, the city agreed to abandon a street, which would add property. Michigan Technological University students prepared a design for the jail as a class exercise. Their solution was to obtain properties to the east through purchase or eminent domain, then bulldoze the homes.

“It’s a wonderful technical exercise, but in the practical world, I think you’d see a lot of upset people over that,” McLean said. 

One resident asked if the jail could also be put to voters in Keweenaw County, which she said would likely look to the new cells in Houghton County to house overflow. 

“If you only have 54, 56 today, unless you really imagine doubling the input in Houghton County very quickly, those beds are either going to sit empty and we will be paying for them, or rightfully so, Keweenaw County will be coming down here with anyone who can’t post bail,” she said.  

Tomorrow: Further discussion of the jail forum including discussions of videoconferencing and the possibility of an entirely different location for the building.