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Jail group gets injunction
Yadkin panel is trying to circumvent board, judge says
Journal File Photo
The Yadkin County Jail has been shut down while repairs are being made to correct unsanitary conditions and plumbing problems.
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Published: November 19, 2009
Updated: 11/19/2009 01:26 pm
YADKINVILLE - A Superior Court judge issued a preliminary injunction yesterday to stop a committee from working on plans for a jail smaller than the one that the Yadkin County Board of Commissioners approved in 2007.
Judge John O. Craig ordered the committee to cancel its meetings until he holds a hearing on the matter on Jan. 8. Craig told the commissioners Monday that in the coming weeks he would send orders and subpoenas to them asking them to explain why they haven't build a new jail.
In the injunction, Craig said that the committee was trying circumvent the wishes of the commissioners by working on a smaller jail, and that the committee's chairman was undermining the process. Lt. Richard Nixon of the Yadkin County Sheriff's Office served Chad Wagoner, the chairman of the county commissioners, with the injunction about 6:30 p.m. Craig also ordered four other commissioners to be served with the injunction.
Wagoner said he will follow the Craig injunction, but said he was frustrated over the delays in building the planned jail.
"I would like to see it begin as soon as possible," Wagoner said.
The commissioners have approved the construction of an $8.2 million jail on Hoots Road, west of Yadkinville in Yadkin County. In December 2006, Craig ordered the commissioners to build a new jail. It has been nearly three years, and no jail has been built, although the land and financing are in place. Yadkin County's current jail remains closed while it is being repaired. Yadkin is paying other counties $45 to $62.50 daily per inmate to house them. State officials closed that jail in August because of plumbing problems and unsanitary conditions.
The project has been delayed in part because of a series of lawsuits and appeals over the proposed site on Hoots Road.
In his injunction, Craig said that two commissioners were serving on a "new jail committee," and had planned to hold a meeting Friday. The committee would instruct the architects who have designed the jail for Hoots Road to prepare plans for a smaller jail at another site, probably in Yadkinville.
Craig said that the committee is attempting to make major changes to the project approved by the commissioners, "in which hundreds of thousands of taxpayer monies have already been spent."
The judge said that Commissioner Brady Wooten, the committee's chairman, "appears determined to hijack the board's official decisions by ordering" the spending of money to prepare plans for a different jail site. Those actions "would have the same effect of staging a coup against the official board and its proper mandate to build the jail at the Hoots Road site."
Wooten said he was surprised that Craig issued the injunction.
"I thought we were moving in a good direction to resolve the judge's issues," Wooten said. "At this point, we will take no action at the judge's request."
Michael Crowell, a professor at UNC's School of Government, said that he has never seen anything like Craig's injunction.
Typically, such an injunction would prevent a board from taking action, but not from meeting, he said Thursday.
jhinton@wsjournal.com
727-7299
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