{"id":24682,"date":"2024-11-26T15:46:45","date_gmt":"2024-11-26T22:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/la-plata-county-terminates-jail-use-agreement-with-durango\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:58:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:58:23","slug":"la-plata-county-terminates-jail-use-agreement-with-durango","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/la-plata-county-terminates-jail-use-agreement-with-durango\/","title":{"rendered":"La Plata County terminates jail use agreement with Durango"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"La
La Plata County commissioners Matt Salka, left, Marsha Porter-Norton and Clyde Church tour the La Plata County Jail on Jan. 31, 2023. The board voted Tuesday to inform the city of Durango that it will stop accepting inmates held by the city on municipal charges Dec. 26 unless a new agreement that covers more of the county\u2019s liability is reached. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The La Plata County commissioners on Tuesday formally lobbed the ball over to the city of Durango when commissioners unanimously voted to terminate the county\u2019s agreement with the city to house in county jail prisoners facing lower level municipal charges.<\/p>\n

Attorneys for the two governments now face a Dec. 26 deadline, the date on which the termination is effective, to negotiate a mutually acceptable intergovernmental agreement.<\/p>\n

The IGA does not apply to people arrested in Durango city limits under state statute, which covers most serious offenses, but only to those facing relatively low-level charges addressed in municipal court.<\/p>\n

The move punctuates a monthslong standoff between the two governments which began Aug. 1 <\/a>when La Plata County Sheriff Sean Smith informed Durango Police Chief Brice Current that he would stop accepting municipal inmates because of capacity issues.<\/p>\n

Although that decision was never acted upon \u2013 the jail population dropped before it was necessary \u2013 the discourse led the county to pursue a new IGA with the city, per direction from the Board of County Commissioners <\/a>in September.<\/p>\n

The BOCC\u2019s vote Tuesday to approve a letter informing the city of the termination signaled that the county is serious about reaching a new agreement that will take effect in 2025.<\/p>\n

The current IGA, signed in 1994 and left unamended since 1996, required La Plata County to either provide notice of termination no later than Nov. 30, or be contractually beholden to the terms of the automatically renewing agreement through 2025.<\/p>\n

Commissioners voted after a brief executive session in which they discussed whether it was possible to offer a notice period longer than the 30 days suggested by staff. However, the board voted swiftly after the confidential discussion to approve the letter as written.<\/p>\n

Negotiations far apart<\/div>\n

County Manager Chuck Stevens sent the city manager a draft of a proposed IGA on Oct. 17. City Attorney Mark Morgan responded to the county last week in an email saying the city generally found the draft unacceptable, said Kathleen Moore, an attorney for the county.<\/p>\n

The current IGA leaves the county financially vulnerable to certain costs associated with other jurisdictions\u2019 inmates and \u201cno longer services the best interests of the county,\u201d Stevens said.<\/p>\n

\"Morgan\"
Morgan<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Morgan told the BOCC on Tuesday that the 11-page draft contract provided by the county attorney\u2019s office is \u201cso one-sided, we just can\u2019t agree to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI will get you a redline version, but it\u2019s going to have a lot of red lines in it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Among the contentious provisions in the proposed contract is a clause saying the jail may deny a city prisoner who \u201ccurrently exhibits problematic behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s his job,\u201d Morgan said of Smith in an interview. \u201cPeople who can\u2019t be in society because they\u2019re causing disruption go to jail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morgan also objected to, among other provisions, the way a day of jail use is calculated. As proposed, the city would pay for two full days of bed space for a municipal prisoner who arrives at 11 p.m. one day and leaves 7 a.m. the next with no prorating for partial days.<\/p>\n

In short, he said the draft indicates a posture that the county does not want to do business with the city.<\/p>\n

That is not the case, Smith said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not an intent to not house city of Durango inmates,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re strictly trying to make sure that we have our liability covered and that we have tools necessary to manage the population when we get to that point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith also pointed out that the proposed IGA is similar to agreements struck in the past with other governments. However, Morgan has not seen those similar agreements as a result of the specifically worded nature of a records request he filed.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cThe
\u201cThe court has to have an effective enforcement mechanism,\u201d Durango Municipal Court Judge Matt Margeson told La Plata County commissioners Tuesday. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
What about public safety?<\/div>\n

Should the jail stop accepting inmates held on municipal charges, the expectations of what would happen vary depending on which law enforcement agency is asked.<\/p>\n

Durango officials insist it would disrupt a functional and critical component of the justice system that keeps people out of higher level courts.<\/p>\n

La Plata County officials say there would be no compromise to public safety.<\/p>\n

Matt Margeson, the judge who presides over Durango\u2019s recently revamped<\/a> municipal court, told the BOCC that it is generally only low-level offenders who repeatedly refuse to show up in court who end up in jail on municipal charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe court has to have an effective enforcement mechanism,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Smith insists that state statues under which his deputies operate outside Durango\u2019s city limits are sufficient to mitigate any public safety risk.<\/p>\n

\"Smith\"
Smith<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cIf there is a public safety risk and a crime has been committed, we can usually find a statute that applies, and if that person needs to go to jail for that scenario, they can be brought to jail,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Durango Police Chief Current disagrees.<\/p>\n

He said in an interview with The Durango Herald<\/em> that even if a low-level offense \u2013 illegal camping, having an open container of alcohol in public or something of a similar nature \u2013 can be charged under state statute, the higher level charge is not always the most beneficial to the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re able to handle things at the level they need to be handled at,\u201d Current said.<\/p>\n

\"La
La Plata County has said it will stop accepting inmates held by the city of Durango on municipal charges Dec. 26 unless a new agreement that covers more of the county\u2019s liability is reached. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>
What next?<\/div>\n

Although the city could build its own detention facility for municipal inmates, county officials say it is not their intention to bar the city from using the jail, and city officials say they have little interest in such an expenditure when a far more convenient option is available.<\/p>\n

That leaves a looming Dec. 26 deadline for the two governments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am confident that in the short amount of time here we can get an agreement,\u201d Commissioner Marsha Porter-Norton said from the dais.<\/p>\n

Morgan said Tuesday he would return a redline edited version of the IGA \u2013 heavy on the red \u2013 to the county that day.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Matt Salka said he will work to ensure the county attorney\u2019s office acts quickly in response.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will make sure that this is a priority, because we want to make sure that we\u2019re all covered here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

However, the two governments appear to have drastically different visions of what the final product will look like. And if the attorneys can\u2019t agree on a draft to recommend to their respected elected bosses?<\/p>\n

\u201cThat leaves the politicians to work it out,\u201d Morgan said.<\/p>\n

rschafir@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

30 days before detention center stops accepting municipal offenders<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[507,28,475,1680,1024],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-24682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-durango-city-officials","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-colorado","tag-la-plata-county-commissioners","tag-la-plata-county-jail"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24682"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78632,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24682\/revisions\/78632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24682"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=24682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}