Geiger may get boot in 2013

Geiger Corrections Center, home to 600 inmates, may be forced to move.

Spokane County officials, who have planned a $1.4 million expansion of the center, said they were caught off-guard by word that Spokane International Airport probably will not extend the county’s lease past 2013. The airport owns the former World War II-era army barracks where Geiger is located.

“It’s a big concern,” said Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich. “This has created a domino effect,” impacting not just Geiger, but also the county jail as well as the federal justice system.

The county has been looking at ways of solving jail overcrowding, which last year prompted the Sheriff’s Office to reduce by 80 the number of federal inmates housed at the jail. That forced the U.S. Marshals Service to ship those inmates to Kennewick.

Expanding Geiger to hold an additional 76 medium-security inmates was considered a partial, short-term answer. County Commissioner Phil Harris said Tuesday that the expansion isn’t necessarily dead, though others were talking as though it is.

“Does it make sense to spend taxpayer money on a facility that we’re going to have to abandon?” said Commissioner Mark Richard.

Also on the table is talk of a new jail that could have enough space to include Geiger inmates, at a cost of about $450 million. The question now is whether it could be constructed before Geiger’s lease expires. Knezovich said it would be a stretch since the issue probably won’t get to voters until 2008.

But County Commissioner Mark Richard said there likely is enough time “as long as we stay on a steady course and we get active.”

Another option, expanding the current jail, would cost an estimated $80 million. But some county officials – Harris among them – say it’s time to move inmates out of the city.

The corrections center is in the airport’s business park and deters companies from moving in, said airport director Neal Sealock. The barracks is an eyesore and wasn’t designed to house inmates, he said.

“It’s not conducive to the business plan and trying to create a viable business park,” Sealock said.

Geiger once was considered a low-security lockup, but now also houses higher levels of prisoners sent from the jail. About 500 men and 100 women are incarcerated there.

Knezovich said it would take at least five years to construct a new jail from the time a decision is made to build one.

Geiger, which is run by Spokane County, leases the airport land for $400,000 a year. Although the airport board hasn’t held a formal vote on the matter, a clear majority don’t believe the Geiger lease should be extended past Dec. 2013, Sealock said.

Harris is a member of that board and said Tuesday night that he has known that the lease was at risk. But other county officials, including Knezovich, Richard and Geiger director Leon Long, appeared surprised by the news.

The airport board is open to allowing the county to build a new lockup elsewhere on airport property, Sealock said.

“It’s not an issue of just dusting our hands,” Sealock said.

In February, commissioners approved the $1.4 million transformation of a Geiger gym into housing for 76 inmates. The goal was to move more county jail inmates to Geiger to create room in the jail for those accused of federal crimes.

Last year, the Sheriff’s Office informed federal officials that the number of federal inmates housed at the county jail would be capped at 50. There were 130 federal inmates in the jail at the time, said Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal Eric Marks.

Since that decision, about 75 federal inmates arrested in the Spokane area have been staying in Benton County Jail, costing more for transportation and causing hardships on attorneys and families, Marks said. So, cancellation of the Geiger expansion would be “a disappointment on several levels,” Marks said.