Al Klemm is being dishonest about why he supports building a new jail, or he has lost touch with reality | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer, as well as the print version of The County Compass.

Either way, his vote is going to cost us millions of wasted dollars unless he comes to his senses.

    The following appeared in the January 24, edition of the County Compass:

    We recently had a reader send us a copy of Al Klemm's Newsletter (he never sends them to us anymore.). We want to commend Mr. Klemm for finally trying to explain his position on the jail. The problem is, his position is both a distortion of the truth and a faulty understanding of the situation. We'll address it in more detail in a future edition but here is the essence of what Mr. Klemm offers as justification of his vote to spend millions of dollars of the taxpayer money, without a vote of the people as clearly is the intent of the N. C. Constitution (Article 5, Sec. 4).

    He list four reasons to build a new jail:

    1. Superior Court Judge Wayland Sermons has ordered a new jail be built,

    2. The jail is overcrowded,

    3. The threat of a law suit if someone is hurt in the jail

    4. If we wait, a new jail in the future could cost more.

    Simply stated, Mr. Klemm is just wrong. Judge Sermons did NOT order a new jail being built and he did not order it being built in Chocowinity. No Superior Court Judge even has the authority to order a new jail being built. The N. C. Court of Appeals has already ruled on that in Alamance County. Mr. Klemm knows this. He is simply distorting what Judge Sermons ruled.

    Hood has already addressed the overcrowding issue. It could be solved by better case management by the District Attorney in trying cases quicker. But even if the case load remains what is projected (which is bogus) it would still be far cheaper to contract out the overload than to build a completely new facility. Hood provides the numbers to support this conclusion.

    The threat of a law suit is a red herring. There is always a threat of a "catastrophe" and a law suit. The issue would be whether the injuries were the result of gross negligence on the county's part. The County just spent $700,000 to address this. No county in modern history in North Carolina as ever lost a lawsuit that was comparable to our situation.

    Mr. Klemm also says it might cost more to wait and build a jail later. He has NO data to support this. It might, and likely would, actually cost less. The reason that is true is that as the school bonds are paid off that reduces the debt the county has and therefore the interest on the debt. Simply stated, we would have lower interest payments if we wait and therefore the cost in terms of a tax increase would be less, not more.

    But the worst distortion Mr. Klemm makes is that the jail does not meet CURRENT state standards. That is not true. It is simply gross distortion. He alludes to it, but the truth is the jail meets current required standards for a facility built when it was built. It's true it does not meet the standards a new jail would have to meet, but the fact of the matter is that probably no county building meets the codes a new facility would have to meet. And that includes most of the schools. No county replaces a facility because it does not meet "new construction" standards. Most business facilities do not meet new construction standards but you never hear of a business replaced a recently renovated facility just so it will meet new construction standards. Mr. Klemm is being very dishonest about this. And he knows this, or he has completely lost touch with reality.

    Bottom line: Mr. Klemm has not given us a single legitimate reason to build a new jail.

    So ask yourself: What is really going on here?