MIDLAND COUNTY, Texas — The Midland County Commissioners Court voted in favor of a certificate of obligation that would bring a new county jail to Midland County.
The vote was 3-1 in favor of the certificate. Precinct 2 Commissioner Jeff Sommers was the only one to vote against the new jail.
This new jail will be located in Greenwood, which is within Sommers' precinct. It's why he was the only commissioner to vote against the new jail.
“I'm the one that is opposed to it because it is in my precinct, and as I mentioned in court today, I asked every other commissioner if they would raise their hand if they wanted to jail in their precinct," Sommers said. "There wasn't one of them who raised their hand.”
Two Greenwood citizens even came to the court Tuesday to speak their mind to the commissioners court.
Midland County Judge Terry Johnson heard their concerns out and he and the rest of the court understood why some people wouldn’t want a jail so close to them.
"We have looked diligently last 18 months and looked hard for a smaller piece of property somewhere in the county that would meet all the criteria that we needed," Johnson said. "For the architectural part of the jail, we couldn't find a 50 acre spot that didn't have an oil well on it, or plugged well or main transmission lines running through it.”
The schools were also on people's minds, as Greenwood ISD has recently passed a bond that would bring in new buildings and a new elementary school.
According to Johnson, the school would be far east of the new jail.
However, when inmates get released from prison, whether on bond or just at the end of their sentence, they'll get released from the jail and need a way to get back home.
If they don't have a ride home, they'll start walking, which means freshly released inmates could be walking around the community.
"If they don't have a ride, they walk to wherever they're going. That's a concern of the folks in our in my precinct," Sommers said. "If you put the jail in our backyard and you let a prisoner walk out, they're going to be walking into our backyards and our school district in our schools.”
The courts promised to keep the same amount of staff. Also, they might even add more jobs to the jail for security purposes and to get them where they need to go, even if they have to call them an Uber.
“I think you'll see the court making every option available to getting those folks that are getting out, if they don't have a ride, we will get them here to Midland and they won't be left out Greenwood wandering around," Johnson said. "We'll do whatever it takes to make the people out there safe and secure.”
The jail is going to be a total of 28 acres and is going to be built in a way that makes sure inmates stay in and the community stays safe.
“We're building a state of the art secure facility that is $170 million so the taxpayers are getting their bang for their buck, they really are," Johnson said. "I'm not saying anything bad about schools, but this is gonna rival what they're doing with the schools and then the safety factors that are built in are just unprecedented.”
Johnson said the certificate of obligation will help the commissioners court pay the jail off in the next 20 years. They are hoping construction can begin by March with a tentative completion time of 18 months.