Bellingham to start 2016 without jail contract

Although the Whatcom County Council has approved a six-month extension to its jail contracts with local cities, Bellingham will start the new year without an agreement for jail service on the books.

The city did not approve of a key change that the county made to the current contracts before they were extended on Tuesday, Dec. 8.

“Last week County Council passed a resolution with a contract amendment that was not acceptable to me, and I don’t think it would be to you,” Bellingham Mayor Kelli Linville told the City Council during an afternoon meeting Monday, Dec. 14.

The new contracts include a caveat allowing Whatcom County Sheriff Bill Elfo to tell cities to move their inmates from the jail within hours once it becomes too crowded.

Elfo had made it clear throughout the lead-up to the Nov. 3 election, when voters rejected a sales tax measure that would have funded a new jail, that he would need to reduce the jail population in January after current contracts expire.

As written, the city could be given four hours to remove inmates who don’t get released or make bail within two hours of their first appearance. For inmates currently serving time, the city could be given 24-hour notice to move them to another facility.

The mayor told the sheriff that the city would need more time than that to figure out transportation, and asked for a few days’ notice rather than one day or a few hours.

The agreement also allows discretion, stating that inmates could also be moved at another time as agreed to by the sheriff; Elfo said he thought left enough room for the city’s concerns to be addressed.

The city however, wanted something in writing, and council did not sign the new contracts Monday, its last meeting of the year.

The current jail agreement expires Dec. 31.

“That concerns me we’ll be going into the first of the year without a contract,” Elfo said.

County vote

Leading up to the county’s contract extension vote last week, Linville and city staff met with Elfo and his team to go over details of the new jail agreement and to ask for more notice.

Because the contract change states that inmates could also be moved at another time as agreed, Elfo said he felt the two parties were clear on the fact he would work with the city to make sure the jail population could be lowered without compromising safety.

Linville emailed the County Council before its vote on Tuesday, Dec. 8, asking members to either approve the extension without the changes or to allow the city more time to continue negotiating with the sheriff, as the measures they had talked about were not included in the agreement.

Elfo called Linville to make sure the city’s request for three days’ notice would still work, and asked her to speak to the County Council that afternoon.

To the council, he explained there had been some communications between the city and himself that had not made it back and forth in time for the meeting.

County Council member Carl Weimer asked whether the amendments would be OK with the city.

“That’s the issue that passed in the mail,” Linville said. “We aren’t ready today to sign on the bottom line.”

Elfo reiterated that the agreement would allow him discretion.

“So that discretion is OK with you?” Weimer asked Linville.

“Well, as long as the sheriff and I are working together, I think yes, it would be,” Linville said.

County Council member Pete Kremen also sought to clarify that the language allowed enough flexibility to accomplish the things agreed to with the city.

“Yes, I believe so,” Elfo said.

Recent movements

But when it came time to present the agreement to Bellingham City Council on Monday, Linville said she wanted to make sure a longer notice time was put in writing before signing a new agreement.

“We are down to basically one issue, and that’s whether we’re going to have 24 hours to remove someone from the jail,” Linville told the council.

The city is currently asking for four days’ notice, up from three, along with some discretion to choose which of their inmates would be moved from the facility.

“We also acknowledge the fact the sheriff has the authority to make that decision,” Linville said.

The document the city is proposing still would allow the sheriff to make more immediate changes to the jail population if necessary under special circumstances.

When asked Monday evening why she had apparently changed her stance from last week to this week over the wording of the agreement, Linville said she hadn’t, and said she thought she had made herself clear to the County Council.

“I was hoping that would make it clear we didn’t have an agreement yet,” Linville said. “I said I wasn’t signing on the dotted line yet.”

City Council directed Linville to continue negotiating with the county to get the notice needed to safely and efficiently move its inmates from the jail as needed, with a focus on getting people into jail alternatives locally when possible, rather than sending them to another county.

Council also approved a stop-gap agreement with Yakima County that would allow the city to send inmates there on an as-needed basis.

Because the county and city councils have already had their last meetings for the calendar year, it will be January before an agreement could go back to the county for approval.

“We’re not going to cut off jail service on January first because we don’t have a contract,” Elfo said in an interview Tuesday, Dec. 15. “We’ll try to work through this with their staff.”

There is also the chance the agreement would need to go back to the six small cities, as Elfo said he wants to treat everyone fairly.

“We want to do all that we can here to work with all the partners that use the jail,” Elfo said. “We’re facing some very difficult challenges with this facility. We want to work to ensure the safety of all citizens and the safe administration of justice.”

This story was originally published December 14, 2015 at 9:59 AM with the headline "Bellingham to start 2016 without jail contract."