“Finally! A Jail Plan We Can Afford!” The new Smith county jail support group went public today! KLTV ran the story, along with a story from the opposition side, which I applaud them for. In a related story, the “What Part of No” committee, challenged the “Finally! A Jail Plan We Can Afford!” committee to a debate on the issue. Sadly, this was refused. It could have been a great opportunity for the public. Our opinion is that there is really not much to debate. Smith county cannot afford this jail proposal, anymore than it could afford the last 3 proposals. There are, at this time, fewer reasons than ever to build a new jail. Alternative programs are working, and with the support of the commissioners court in the area of funding these programs, the need will soon evaporate. The addition of a an extra court or two, would further diminish the need for building a jail. I hope our legislators are listening.

With that in mind, this just looks like just another jail plan we can’t afford.

In the interest of fairness, we would like to extend an opportunity to the two parties to submit their views here. We will print them, unedited, straight from the horse’s mouth.

The committee to support the new jail proposal, the “Finally! A Jail Plan We Can Afford!” committee is forming. We thought we would like to know what became of the last committees efforts, so we did a little research.

If you would like to see the future of the current Smith county jail proposal, just take a look at the past! We managed to dig up the URL for the last jail proposal support committee, and it will give you a look at the current committees future! This is the current web page for the “Build The Jail Committee” from the 2007 election aftermath. We will title this link:

Back To The Future For Smith County Jail Proposal

We hope that the new committee can come up with something snappy to add to their site after November 6!