BURGAW — Pender County has its eyes on state-owned land on the northern edge of Burgaw to build a new jail. Officials hope a new facility will alleviate the overcrowding that has burdened the county’s judicial system during its recent population growth.
In a written request made to the Board of Commissioners, County Manager Randell Woodruff said newly elected state representative Carson Smith supports a resolution to approve a request of a local bill in the North Carolina General Assembly to transfer state property to the county for the new jail site.
The property in question is on the same 350-acre parcel that Pender Correctional Center is located. According to Woodruff, the approximately 100-acre property — on the eastern side of the land opposite of the current jail — is currently used for farming.
The written request cites the challenges the county faces with overcrowding and its heavy reliance on out-of-county housing for inmates. According to Woodruff, between $500,000 and $700,000 was spent last year on moving inmates to jails outside of the county due to Pender Correctional “being small and overcrowded.”
According to the request, the Pender County Sheriff’s Office transported 1,042 inmates to out-of-county jail facilities in 2018, using 1,600 man-hours, 725 transports, and a total traveled distance of almost 78,591 miles across the state.
“If we are fortunate enough to access this property then that means we would not have to purchase property, so it’s something that would be good for the taxpayers of Pender County to be able to access and utilize a state property without having to purchase another site,” Woodruff said on Thursday.
In a November board meeting, Commissioner David Williams said $800,000 was earmarked for a future land acquisition to build a new county jail. Woodruff said if the land transfer was approved instead, that money would go towards the facility itself.
According to Woodruff, the county’s recent population growth — it was the state’s second-fastest growing county between 2016 and 2017 — has also caused growth in the county’s court system.
“When you have more courts, with that growth you need larger facilities to house inmates as they go through the court system for various types of offenses,” Woodruff said.
Last year Smith retired from his 16-year post as sheriff of Pender County and in November won a seat in the North Carolina House of Representatives, representing Pender and Columbus counties in District 16. Woodruff said Smith’s former career and current support of the land transfer bill is coincidental.
“We’ve been interested in pursuing this for a while now, long before he went to Raleigh as a legislator,” Woodruff said.
If the land transfer is eventually approved at the state level, Woodruff said the county would then conduct a study to determine the size and design of the new jail facility, and estimated the evaluation process to take roughly a year.
The written request said the land’s close proximity to the Pender County Courthouse — which currently sits idle as the county continues to evaluate mold remediation options from damages suffered during Hurricane Florence — and the county’s other judicial and administrative functions would be an ideal location for the new jail facility.
Mark Darrough can be reached at Mark@Localvoicemedia.com
