Lawsuit: City wants jail to accept municipal inmates
The City of Springfield filed a lawsuit Tuesday to force Greene County Sheriff Jim Arnott to once again accept municipal inmates in the jail.
The suit, submitted by City Attorney Dan Wichmer and Assistant City Attorney Thomas Rykowski, names Arnott and Greene County Commissioners Bob Cirtin, Roseann Bentley and Harold Bengsch as defendants, and claims Arnott is not complying with an intergovernmental agreement signed in July 1997.
Part of the agreement states "The parties agreed that the jail would accept and house, with limited exceptions, all Springfield municipal prisoners and that the funding for housing the Springfield municipal prisoners would consist solely of the proceeds collected from the tax approved by voters on Nov. 4, 1997."
The city is seeking to prevent Arnott and the commissioners from "unilaterally modifying the provisions of the Agreement," as well as asking that the court order Arnott to provide housing for all municipal inmates, without charge.
Citing a lack of space, Arnott announced a new policy on April 3 that the jail would turn away municipal inmates. He has periodically lifted the ban, starting on July 6, but only for short periods of time.
The suit states in one instance Police Chief Paul Williams was told by Arnott that he would be moving inmates out of the jail, freeing up 50 beds. However, after accepting five inmates during a five-hour period, the jail was again closed.
The city claims in the suit that accepting and housing municipal inmates is "independent of and is not conditioned upon the total number of prisoners accepted by the Sheriff and housed in the City-County jail."
The city claims in the suit that Arnott is turning away municipal inmates in favor or federal prisoners, at one point stating "Despite the Defendants agreeing with the federal government to only house up to 35 federal prisoners, the City-County jail has routinely housed over 100 federal prisoners."
The suit also claims that since April 3, Arnott has accepted increasing numbers of federal prisoners, at times as many as 130.
Last week, Mayor Bob Stephens held a press conference to express frustration that the city, in ongoing talks with Greene County, had not been able to come up with a compromise. He announced that the city was considering filing a lawsuit if a solution was not found.
At the conference, Arnott announced a plan to pay for up to 25 beds in the Henry County Jail for municipal inmates, although transportation to and from the jail would be provided and paid for by the booking municipality.
Stephens told a News-Leader reporter at the time that he believed a better plan would be to move state and federal prisoners out of the jail. Arnott told a News-Leader reporter that he has already moved all state and federal prisoners that can be efficiently moved.
The lawsuit states that Springfield cannot reopen the city's municipal jail to solve the inmate housing issue, "as doing so would require appropriation, construction delays, interim expenses for the housing of prisoners, none of which should be incurred but for the refusal to perform under the 1997 Agreement by the Sheriff."
Before this spring, about 20-25 municipal defendants were arrested per day and held in the jail until they posted bail or were seen by a judge.
Following the change in policy, city police say that from April 3-July 6, they have arrested 1,003 people who were released with a court date who would have otherwise gone to jail. Police added that 114 individuals have been arrested four or more times for stealing in that span.
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