Houghton County Jail Committee member Faith Morrison spoke to the County Board about ways to reduce costs for building a new jail. (Graham Jaehnig/Daily Mining Gazette)

HOUGHTON — Jail Committee Faith Morrison provided a Jail Committee update at Tuesday’s regular June meeting of the Houghton County Board of Commissioners. The committee held a meeting immediately before the board meeting.

The meeting, she said, was approximately 90 minutes long, ending at 5:30 p.m., just a half hour before the county board meeting. Much of the meeting, said Morrison, was spent in talks with representatives from Moyle Construction.

“What we learned from that meeting is that it might be possible to do a design-build type of a format for creating creating a new jail with or without a piece that would be a leaseback sort of an approach,” she said. “In any case, this would be using the expertise of a local firm that could, as members of our community, also with a vested interest in our community, identify how the jail should be built.”

Morrison said the committee was informed that 90% of large construction projects all require the same types of expertise Moyle already possesses, and whether the project is a school, a hospital or a jail, the remaining 10% needs to be completed in cooperation with other firms with similar expertise.

“Compared to the estimates for the cost of building a new jail we’ve been working with from our previous consultants,” Morrison said, “the hope is that much more economical design could be found, because there would not be the internal need for all kinds of contracting to various sub-experts that would be needed in the mode of building a jail that was part of the original design plan discussed last year.”

Individual members of the county board were approached by Moyle representatives with possible alternative plans that would help the board and the committees break deadlocks and would better represent Houghton County, but at a cost that the taxpayers of Houghton County could agree with.

“We were looking for input from local contractors and firms with a real investment, a purpose with Houghton County,” she said. “The committee spent our time today speaking with the representatives from Moyle development and asking questions about this design-build process and about funding opportunities and funding methods that might be open to us, and about whether or not the appropriate transparency with the public as well as the process described and the more familiar process of sending a construction project out for competitive bids.”

Morrison said the committee unanimously passed a motion for possible action for the board.

“It’s a motion that the Jail Committee supports the county board seeking more information on the process for such a collaborations, and what steps are appropriate for the county to pursue appropriate due diligence in committing public funds for the jail through these pathways.”

Board of Commissioners Chairman Tom Tikkanen commented that was a lot of information to considered.

“The intent is to keep momentum moving on this,” he said, “but I would suggest we put the report on the agenda for the upcoming work session agenda for July.”

Commissioner Glen Anderson suggested limiting the work session’s agenda items in order to spend more time focusing on the report.

“Anyone paying attention to our online app for the Sheriff’s Office,” he said. “All spring and early summer, we’ve been averaging between 26 and 32 inmates and, depending on the classification of the jail, we’re only supposed to have 28 or less, and some saying as low as 22, so we’re exceeding our capacity, and of course, the 28 cells have been capped since 1963.

“When we had a consultant in 2024, he reviewed that the current sentencing and current arrests classifications. He recommended that currently, we should have 51 cells today, not including any analysis, per capita for a county our size, we have lowest number of jail beds in the state.”

Counties Dickinson, Delta, Menominee, Chippewa, all smaller counties, have anywhere from 80 to 120 beds. Marquette County, he said, has 120 beds and that jail is at is maximum occupancy. They are purchasing beds in neighboring counties.