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Show County jail bond defeat seems very short sighted It's very short sighted. That seems to be the opinion of many people we have spoken with since Tuesday's bond election on a new Iron County hall of justice was defeated, and we must agree. There are several items that disappoint us in the bond election. First, and probably most important is the low voter turnout in Cedar City. Bond elections are notoriously famous for low voter participation, but somehow that seems strange to us at the Iron County Record. Bond elections, many times, are the most important issues facing the people, yet they seem unconcerned. Tuesday, appoximately 20 percent of the people in Cedar City voted. Unfortunately, the trend shows that it was the other 80 percent that defeated the much-needed bond. All the districts in Cedar City voted for the proposal, unfortunately, not enough voters turned ouj to override the wishes of those in Parowan and Paragonah. On the other hand, we must, in a way, compliment the voters in those two communties. We disagree with the way they voted, but at least they voted 50 percent of them voted. And it was enough to swing the election their way. However, as we stated earlier, we think the sentiment against the bond election was ill founded. We have heard time and time again that the jail should be built in the basement of the iron County Courthouse, in Parowan. And time and time again we have responded that there are two major problems with such an idea. The first is that law simply prohibits such. If the building were to be placed in Parowan, it would have to be an entirely new building. That should be enough said to quietly put that matter to rest. Moving the sheriff's department and the circuit court to Parowan, along with the jail, is simply economically unfeasible. And that is the second argument. Prisoners are transferred daily from the jail to the Ninth Circuit Court. Several trips per day are not uncommon. Now, if that distance were suddenly changed from across town to clear to Parowan, the costs would skyrocket and would soon total more than a new jail. We just hope that it is our fears that are ill founded and that this election does not end up costing us all dearly down the road. |