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Tribes get grant for Justice Center |
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Wednesday, 22 July 2009 |
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By Emily Hone FORT HALL — The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes got some help this week in their quest for money to complete their new Justice Center now under construction when Idaho’s congressional delegation wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in support of a grant to fund the correctional component.
According to Laverne Beech, public affairs specialist for the Tribes, Senators Mike Crapo and Jim Risch and Representatives Mike Simpson and Walt Minick signed a letter to Holder Monday expressing their support for the Tribes’ application for a $3.5 million Category II grant from the Recovery Act Correctional Facilities on Tribal Lands program.
The program is administered by the the Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs’ Bureau of Justice Assistance.
The letter says “The new Justice Center represents a considerable step forward toward and effective justice system for the Tribes on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation.”
The letter said that over a decade ago, the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs informed the Tribes they must vacate the current justice facilities due to their poor condition.
Darrell Shay, chairman of the Tribal Law and Order Commission, said in an earlier interview, the court system has operated since its inception out of a rock building now more than a century old, and the only courtroom is in the jail building, which itself is far from adequate, at times housing as many as 70 inmates crowded into space meant for 30.
There was no space at all that met the legal requirements of housing juvenile offenders, he said, and those who had to be incarcerated were farmed out to Bannock County at a cost of $150 per night. When the county needed the space for its own use, the Tribes often had no choice but to release the offenders to their parents.
Shay said the commission was able to procure a doublewide mobile home and part of the court staff was moved there, but court records are spread out in at least three buildings, two of them so old and rodent- infested they were becoming uninhabitable.
One was so bad people were getting sick and had to be evacuated, but the records remain there, he said.
The Fort Hall Business Council set aside $4 million as seed money for new facilities at the time the Fort Hall Water Agreement was accepted and finalized by the Tribes and Congress in 1990, hoping someday to have enough to build the center.
Work actually began in 2005 with a Rural Housing Economic Development Grant from HUD providing the money for site preparation and installation of infrastructure for utilities, then work stalled for three years while the situation with the jail and courts went from bad to worse.
Last year the Tribes negotiated a $15.9 million loan from the Native American Bank so the work could continue, and applied in May for the grant from DOJ to supplement it.
Construction on the 66,200 square foot state-of-the-art justice center began in June 2008 on the south side of Agency Road north of the tribal business center and Bureau of Indian Affairs campus.
When finished this December it will mark the culmination of a 20-year dream, especially for some former members of the Fort Hall Business Council who saw the need and planned and fought for a facility the would replace the aged and crumbling quarters now in use.
The two-level building designed by Lombard-Conrad Architects of Boise will house three courtrooms and court staff on the top level, law enforcement quarters and separate detention areas on the lower level - 80 beds for adults and 20 beds for juveniles at either end, separated by laundry and kitchen facilities.
Both detention areas will have sally ports so that officers can drive in to unload or pick up prisoners. There will be a separate entrance for the public, and the entrances to the law enforcement sides will be secure. The complex will have a fenced impound yard, and the area not accessible by the public also will be fenced.
The Congressional Delegation said in their letter, consolidation of law and order services under one roof will provide “economies of scale, efficiency in service, and less expense than the upkeep of the tribes’ current building.
The letter said the project is consistent with program grant requirements, given that the funding would be used for construction that is ongoing an well as greatly aid in the preservation and creation of jobs and the promotion of economic stability on the Reservation and in the surrounding communities.
“Further, this grant would help provide mush needed infrastructure on the Reservation, produce significant public safety benefits for the community, and allow for the Tribes to provide effective essential law enforcement services,” the Congressional Delegation wrote.
“. . . We urge the Department of Justice to give this proposal all due consideration.”
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 23 July 2009 )
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