New Jail, rinse, repeat

Editor:

We have been dealing with the seemingly non stop new jail conversation for some years now. Might I suggest part of the problem is the transperancy into our local legal issues or lack of over the years. We used to see regular police & courts that gave an insight into how many and why we might have an over crowding issue. But that got removed.

Frankly unless it was somethng fairly major, nearly aLL local crime goes unreported by the one and only local news. It is not uncommon for TV6 to be days ahead or even be the only report on a crime in Houghton county. If all I read was the Gazette I would have almost no idea of the vast majority of crime in our area and the issues with rampant drug use in some areas.

It was 20+ years ago when needles started turning up by Park Ave in Calumet where children played. So we shut down the Calumet police force? Theft, assault , drugs , frankly with the complete lack of any insight in our local crime situation you can not be surprised if the vote coninues to fail every time.

You don’t get to try and pretend we live in some crime free nirvana and in the same breath say that we have a crime problem and an overcrowded jail. Because our local paper has us thinking by its reporting we might have maybe less than a dozen inmates , which is bull of course. But we were told transperancy was going to be a priority when our latest sheriff took over. Yet , as I said , seems like we have about a dozen inmates by reporting standards.

Can’t listen on the scanner and local news doesn’t report it. The Houghton Hilton used to be able to be seen for inmates on an app but even that is gone so it is frankly less transparent than any time in my 51 years. You can not be shocked when the result is we then think we might not have a real overcrowding issue.

Are we protecting the convicted folks? I mean why , seriously why don’t wanna see your name in the paper don’t be a dummy that easy. I got my name in lights twice , not the end of the world folks. But all we have for transparency is a big iron wall and the paper and the sherrif office are the only two who can change that.

Seems if that new jail is so important then showing us the work so to speak shouldn’t be such a massive hassle folks. It worked well for decades. Because all you folks have done is wash, rinse, repeat not even anything new you, literally as did McLean, bring back the same thing over and over again with no insight at all.

My math teacher didn’t give me credit if I didn’t show my work. You’re no different and as a job paid for 100% by tax payers we deserve to know what we are getting for our money, what crime is being cleaned up. Because according to the Gazette these days not much by their reporting.

Show us the work , you might be surprised a bit of transparency and that next vote might go far more friendly for your needs. I can just about guarantee the yes votes would be up.

Jason Tarvis

Calumet