Johnson County looks for justice center vote

IOWA CITY - Johnson County officials likely will take a $39 million bond referendum to voters next November, officials said Wednesday.

Representatives from the county and the criminal justice community have been debating whether to hold the vote in a special election in August or in conjunction with the November general election.

Supervisor Terrence Neuzil said at an informal meeting of area elected officials that November is the likely date, although that is not yet official.

The justice center would include jail and court space to relieve the space and security concerns at the existing jail and courthouse. It's a project the county has been discussing for several years.

The final design likely will call for renovating the current jail and courthouse, located near each other south of downtown, while building on the land behind the courthouse and across Harrison Street to the south.

The county has hired Venture Architects and Neumann Monson Architects to complete a pre-schematic design to see what could be done for $39 million. The plan is expected to be done in April.

The expectation is that $39 million will not be enough to cover all the needs but would address the immediate safety and space concerns, Neuzil said. Future expansion of a justice center could occur in phases.

The county landed on the $39 million figure after concluding that it would be hard to get the public to approve much more.

A bond issue for a new jail failed in 2000.

Neuzil told the gathered officials from the Iowa City school district and the cities of Iowa City, Coralville and North Liberty that the justice center would be a countywide project and an expensive one. He asked that they hold off on any big bond issues in the next couple of years to help the county's chances of winning approval from voters.