By DAVE HAMRICK
dhamrick@thecitizennews.com

Was last week's County Commission public hearing on plans for a new Fayette County jail and courthouse complex a “public relations disaster,” as one speaker put it?

Opponents of the county's plan to build a new jail and courthouse on the site of the old one are calling for more hearings, saying Thursday's five-hour session was not adequate to get their questions answered and their comments heard.

“Have all of your questions been answered?” jail opponent Jim Fair shouted to the audience during last week's session, answered by a chorus of “No!”

“This is the one official public hearing,” commission Chairman Harold Bost said to Fair's suggestion that additional hearings are in order.

“Would you like to leave the impression that you are leaving this public relations disaster in place?” Fair asked.

Commissioner Greg Dunn argued that opponents' questions have indeed been answered. “You just haven't liked the answers you've gotten,” he said.

Although Bost sticks by his comment that no additional hearings are needed, he said this week he does intend to take a different approach to future major decisions.

“If I had it to do all over again, I would certainly get out there earlier and seek public involvement in the process,” he said. “I was just naive. This jail discussion had been underway for so long that I just thought it was the way it was supposed to be.”

Bost said commissioners are working hard to get public input into the next big decision concerning the jail — how to finance it. He will take charts and graphs and make presentations on the jail to any civic club, homeowners association or any other group that's interested, and seek their comments on funding options, Bost said.

Commissioner Glen Gosa this week said he agrees with Bost that there are lessons to be learned from the hearing last week.

“We need to learn from this,” he said.

Members of the commission considered numerous sites for a new judicial complex as part of their deliberation, Gosa said, but the public wasn't invited in on those deliberations.

“The impression is that we have considered no alternatives,” he said, “when in fact we have considered several. But we didn't go to the public and present option one, option two, etc.”

When a public hearing was scheduled last week, commissioners had drawn up detailed plans using the existing site.

“We can do a better job of that in the future,” said Gosa.

Commissioner Linda Wells disagreed. The county government has been out front in providing information to all who have asked, she said. “The people who complained most loudly had had at least three private meetings and other information provided to them,” she said.

“We could have had public hearings much sooner, but it would have been piecemeal,” she added. “It was much better to wait until we were able to gather all of the information and make a good presentation.”

Commissioner Greg Dunn, who was instrumental last year in arranging purchase of additional land near the current jail so that it could be expanded, agreed with Bost and Gosa that earlier hearings on the plans for the jail might have defused some of the public rancor.

“I didn't think about it until people started accusing us of not having done it,” he said. “When I got on the board, building a new jail there had been under discussion for several years.

“But in retrospect, yes, we probably could have done a better job,” he said. “We needed to have had this hearing six months ago.”

But, he added, “I still think we're making the right decision at the right time in the right place.”