COVINGTON — As a consultant recommended building a smaller Kenton County Jail than originally proposed, county officials asked an advisory group Friday to help determine the facility's mission, so that a site can be chosen as soon as possible.

        “It's time to make the tough decisions,” said Kenton County Commissioner Barb Black. Mrs. Black, Commissioner Adam Koenig and Kenton Judge-executive Dick Murgatroyd said they would like to choose a site by the end of the year. Commissioner Dan Humpert said he thought county officials would have the information to make a decision by January or February.

        Eight sites north of 20th Street in Covington are in the running for the $30 million jail, including the renovation of the present jail in the Kenton County Administration building.

        David Blodgett, a consultant who has 27 years of expertise with the Ohio Department of Cor rections, has spent the past six months updating 2-year-old studies on Kenton County's jail needs and evaluating potential sites.

        Friday, Mr. Blodgett told the Kenton County Jail Commission, an advisory group charged with determining the future of adult corrections in the county, that earlier consultants' prisoner projections were too high.

        Instead of the 573 prisoners originally projected for 2010, revised projections call for 455, Mr. Blodgett said. For 2020, consultants had projected 739 prisoners, but Mr. Blodgett has lowered that projection to 489.

        He said his projections also take into account revised Kenton County population figures that call for slower growth, and rely on actual bookings, as opposed to the estimated booking figures used by earlier consultants.

        While new laws or a change in state corrections policies could affect prisoner growth, Mr. Blodgett said he thought a recession or increased use of illegal drugs would be the biggest single factors influencing prisoner projections.

        The jail commission agreed to develop a mission statement addressing everything from the type and classification of prisoners to programs needed to serve them.

        “I think the most critical piece of information we need at this point to move forward is to identify what (the jail's) going to be,” Mr. Murgatroyd said. “Is is going to be a county jail, or is it going to be a county jail with X number of state prisoners?”

        County Treasurer Ivan Frye said the county is required by law to accept some state prisoners, but it has done so at a loss.

        The county also is thwarted when it tries to force the state to accept its own prisoners. Recently, the county tried to move between 35 and 40 state inmates to state prisons, but the state had beds for only nine, Jailer Terry Carl said.

        Once the jail commission develops the mission statement for the new jail, Mr. Murgatroyd will ask Mr. Blodgett to rank the potential jail sites. One or more sites will be recommended to the fiscal court and jail commission.

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