UI, county butting heads on land
It's just a half-acre parking lot on South Capitol Street and an old former school building. But the struggles between the visions of Johnson County and University of Iowa officials for that land have become more prominent as Johnson County Jail officials contend with stepped up alcohol-enforcement efforts by the university.
The concerns revolve around overcrowding at the jail.
The jail regularly houses between 160-170 inmates, and 80-90 prisoners are sent to neighboring counties daily because the facility is over capacity, county Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek said. In July alone, the county spent $124,723 to transport and house inmates in neighboring counties.
That cost increases during the football season, when the county must ship 20 more people to other jails before games to make room for tailgating-related arrests — to the tune of $3,000.
There is a simple way to ease the overcrowding problem, officials said: Add to the current jail. But that means the county would have to buy a parking lot owned by the UI. And the university isn't selling.
According to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by The Daily Iowan, county officials have been interested in the School District administration building since 2005 and the UI parking lot since 2006.
The county attempted to purchase the lot in 2006, documents show. The letters say the UI decided not to "sell or encumber" the lot, which officials said provided much-needed East Side employee parking space. At the time the university considered the land a possible site for a parking ramp or academic building.
UI Business Manager George Hollins said the property is used for valuable parking for the new Campus and Recreation Facility as well as university staff.
"It has been a very heavily used part of our parking program over the years," he said. "It should serve that function for a long time."
Hollins said that staff parking was "pretty much at equilibrium" and not limited at this time.
County officials decided to build a justice center, which would include a jail and a courthouse, in a new location after the UI decided not to sell the property, Johnson County Supervisor Sally Stutsman said.
E-mails from 2009 show that the county and the university — who have mutual needs south of Burlington Street, Sullivan said — entered into talks with Sen. Bob Dvorksy, D-Coralville, in September 2009 to discuss land purchases in that location.
An e-mail on July 19 from Johnson County Supervisor Rod Sullivan to UI President Sally Mason and others said Johnson County officials had thought the UI would contact them before purchasing land south of Burlington Street, and they were "shocked" when the university offered to buy the School District administration building.
"They could solve our jail problem for us tomorrow by selling us less than half an acre," he said.
But UI officials said they were waiting on a proposal from the county.
"Had the county provided a specific proposal, we would have been very happy to discuss it with them," university spokesman Tom Moore said.
An upward expansion of the jail is cost-prohibitive, Sullivan said.
After UI officials announced their "Think Before You Drink" tailgating campaign, Johnson County Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek expressed concern the tighter anti-alcohol measures may generate more arrests and even more crowding in the jail.
The UI's new cite and release policy — which allows people to be ticketed but released — eased his concerns.
But other officials said they would like to see more cooperation between the county and the UI on the overcrowding issue.
"I think that [the university has] been pretty non-involved in the issue," Stutsman said.
Moore said the UI remains willing to discuss issues with Johnson County.
The Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee continues to study the jail issue and is close to presenting an option to voters, supervisors said.
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