OTTAWA — A presentation on the county juvenile detention center will be tonight at 7 at the county annex. The county commission will attend the presentation. The county could buy the Neosho County Community College site at Second and Beech to build a new juvenile detention center. The new juvenile detention center would be built southwest of the existing NCCC building, according to a new proposal. The architect for the project estimates that the 14-bed facility would cost $4 million, counting the cost of buying the Neosho campus, saying it’s cheaper to use the Neosho campus rather than build next to the Elizabeth Layton Center southwest of Ottawa. The existing building would be used for administrative offices for the sheriff’s department and other county departments. Rather than issue general obligation bonds to cover the $4 million total cost, the county could use the public building commission to issue bonds and buy a site and build a new juvenile detention center. County administrator Lisa Johnson said if the county commission issues GO bonds, they would have to put it on the ballot first. There’s a different procedure for a public building commission, she said. The county public building commission has been in effect since 2006 but never has been used. If the building commission, which is comprised of the five county commissioners, chooses to issue the bonds, it would publish its intent in the official newspaper. The second publication starts a 30-day protest period, she said. It would take a percentage of registered voters to force an election, a little more than 800 valid signatures. If there was an election, it would have to be a special election because under state law, there isn’t enough time to schedule a bond protest election for the November ballot, she said.
Wednesday, Aug. 25, 7 a.m.
