No new funding for Haywood County Jail expansion in 2022, but project will proceed

When Haywood County Commissioners, in early June, approved a budget for the 2022 fiscal year without designating any money to expand and upgrade the county jail, critics considered it only a small victory, while officials say the decision was insignificant.

But just because money wasn’t designated for the jail, an issue of contention for months between county officials and grassroots activists, doesn’t mean the project is dead.  

“It's not like we're not doing it,” commissioner Kevin Ensley said, “We're not to the point where we are going to fund it because we're doing some tests on the site.” 

However, activists will take the partial win.  

“It’s a battle won, it’s not the war won, obviously, because I mean they’re still going to seek funding for that. We just delayed it a little bit,” Jesse-Lee Dunlap said, one of the lead organizers with the anti-jail expansion campaign.  

Going forward, Dunlap and others who mobilized against more funding for the jail believe the issue needs to be put on a ballot referendum. 

"We need to put this to the voters," Dunlap said. 

In November 2020, Haywood County Sheriff Greg Christopher sent a proposal to the county commissioners explaining that a $16 million expansion and upgrade of the jail was necessary. The jail was nearly always at capacity, he said, which forced his office to send people to nearby jails, a costly endeavor. 

Dunlap's group of grassroots activists, local residents from the statewide organization Down Home North Carolina, found out about the proposed expansion and began mobilizing in April 2021 to try and get the county to spend that $16 million elsewhere.  

According to a study by Western Carolina University, more than 70% of the people held at the Haywood County Jail struggle with a serious substance use disorder. This stat, among others, led the organizers to argue that just because the jail is full, doesn’t mean it needs to be. The county could find other ways to handle the issue of drug use and mental illness, they argued, and it would probably be cheaper.  

Organizers from Down Home voiced their discontent at many county commission meetings. They spent two months knocking on more than 4,000 doors and  with more than 650 residents around Haywood, from folks living in Waynesville to those in far out unincorporated rural parts of the county.  

More:Residents on $16 million Haywood jail expansion: Wait, what? No?

Many of the people they spoke with hadn’t even heard about the proposed expansion. By the end, they tallied that 64% of the people they talked to opposed investing $16 million into the jail. 

Commissioner Ensley said he’s heard a mix of support and opposition to the jail expansion from residents. He said the overriding factor, though, is that the jail is full too often.  

“We have to do it,” he said, “We've got to have space for the inmates. I think that'll probably be what prevails, that we have to do it.” 

Sheriff Christopher said as the jail continues to fill, his office will continue to send people to jails in neighboring counties. 

"That’s really all that I can do, so we’ll see what the commissioners and the county manager do from here on out," Christopher said.

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"It's my obligation as the sheriff to advise the county commissioners and our county managers when a situation such as overcrowding becomes an issue in our jail. So I have to give them that information and let them make the decisions that they feel is best for the county," he said.

The organizers from Down Home understand the need to keep the jail under the capacity, but they don't think the multi-million dollar investment is the best option, cost-wise or morally. 

"We need to fund services that will prevent people from going to jail," Dunlap said, "We can do things that are cheap, or free, to decarcerate and stay within the state mandate that keeps getting brought up. We've got ways around this. We've got ways to take care of people that are far cheaper than a jail."

So far, the county has paid $50,000 to the company Bunnell Lammons Engineering to evaluate the soil and water table at the site of the proposed expansion to determine if it’s safe to do more construction. Ensley said they expect to have the results of that study within the next few months, and they’ll likely choose an architect in the fall.  

All told, he said, the county probably won’t be able to propose a budget and set a timeline on the jail expansion until June of 2022, meaning funding for it would be included in the budget for the next fiscal year.  

Clarissa Donnelly-DeRoven is the cops and courts reporter at the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at cdonnellyderoven@citizentimes.com or follow her on twitter @plz_CLARify.