Jail Cramdown proceeds full steam ahead | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    The Great Cramdown is on. Full steam ahead. The three Democrat Commissioners on Beaufort County Commission were joined by RINO (Republican In Name Only) Al Klemm to make a three to four majority to kill a motion by Commissioner Gary Brinn to submit the question of whether to build a new jail to a referendum of the voters in the May Primary.

    Voting not to let the people decide were: Jerry Langley, Ed Booth, Robert Belcher and Al Klemm. Voting in favor of letting the people decide were Gary Brinn, Hood Richardson and Stan Deatherage.

    We will have the video of the action as soon as it is made available, but it's a waste of time to watch it. The deal has already been struck. The jail is going to be built and it will be built at the entrance to the Southside Industrial Park. It will be a one-story facility. All that is, unless the people do something about it.

    The expected cost will be somewhere around 20 million dollars and will require an estimated 10% increase in taxes.

    The reason we are so confident in these decision is simple. Al Klemm has sold out to the Democrats who are determined that the convicts in Beaufort County will have a nice facility. Klemm is the swing vote. He ran, and still touts himself, as a "conservative" but he is the swing vote that gives the Democrats control of the board. He has obviously cut some kind of deal with the Democrats and continues to provide that swing vote, no matter what the specifics.

    Before the vote Stan Deatherage asked the commissioners in favor of building a new remote jail what their reasoning is, but he got no reply.

    Gary Brinn tried to be The Resolver of the dispute but was unsuccessful. He thus resigned from the Jail Committee after the vote saying: "I refuse to be a party to the cramdown."

    The decision came a few minutes after the Board was informed that the renovations to the existing jail have already cost the taxpayers over a half million dollars. That's how much it has cost to fix the problems that caused the jail to be closed by Superior Court Judge Wayland Sermons after electrical problems surfaced after the faulty installation of a high voltage clothes dryer. Since then the prisoners have been house in jails in neighboring counties.

    Indications from the most recent Jail Committee meeting are that the Democrats and Klemm are going to try to use Sermons, or blame Sermons as the reason, to build a new jail. But Sermons does not have the legal authority to order the County to build a new jail. The appellant courts in North Carolina have held that a Superior Court Judge can find a jail unsafe and order it closed but he does not have the authority to dictate the solution. So at Monday night's meeting the Board passed a motion stating that it is the county's policy to provide a jail that meets state standards and that the jail must be administered in accord with those standards.

    Check back later for more. There will be more. Much more.