OTHER SITES FOR JUVENILE CENTER EYED

The Cape Girardeau County Commission is looking at additional sites in hopes of landing a Division of Youth Services juvenile detention center in the county.

Commissioners originally had proposed offering the state several acres of land in Klaus Park, but that plan has run into public opposition.

Mitch Robinson, Cape County's industrial recruitment director, and Randy Rhodes, the county juvenile officer, have been looking at several sites around the county.

In a meeting Thursday with commissioners, Robinson reported he had met with Cape Girardeau city officials, including City Manager Michael Miller, regarding a five-acre site at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport that might be available for development for the juvenile center.

Robinson said city officials will try to determine a fair price for the land, and it might be possible to work out a long-term low-cost lease.

Miller couldn't be reached for comment.

"Hopefully by the end of the month we'll be able to determine whether that will be a workable site for us," Robinson said.

He said he also has looked at two sites on Linden Street near the Public Health Center and a site on Nash Road.

"I've just asked them to find some alternative sites to submit with the proposal," said county Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones. "We don't want to lose the detention center just because people are raising Cain about it."

Jones said that, despite opposition to putting the center in Klaus Park, he still believes that is the best site. "But for these folks, it's a very emotional issue for them," he said of the opponents.

None of the alternate sites has been submitted to the state yet, Jones said, and the county has not withdrawn Klaus Park as a potential site for the center.

"The application's not due until the end of March, so we still have about two weeks to get everything together," he said.

Don Harper, an opponent of the Klaus Park site, said commissioners "are sidestepping every issue we've brought up."

"I know that a site hasn't been chosen," he said. "But we want to make sure that this site isn't chosen."

Harper has land that adjoins Klaus Park. He said his major objection is the fact that the county is offering to lease land for the center to the state for $1 a year after it just bought more than 45 acres adjoining North County Park.

"Our major concern is what we're doing with our parks and the money we're spending on our parks," he said. "We're going to need more park land in the next five years."

Harper said he also is concerned about what might happen if a juvenile escaped from the center in Klaus Park, which is near residential areas.

He said he wants to know if the state would be liable for any property damage that might occur, and he is worried about his family's safety and the safety of his neighbors.

The possibility that property values in the neighborhood would go down also concerns him, he said.

Harper said he is unhappy that none of the county commissioners contacted residents around the park regarding their concerns.

At a recent meeting with residents, he said, county officials "patted us on the head and sent us on our way like schoolchildren."

"These people are supposed to be our voices," he said. "It doesn't look like that's what's happening."

Last week the Division of Youth Services announced it expected to receive additional federal funding, which would allow the construction of two medium-security juvenile centers instead of one secure facility.

Harper is not impressed by the change in security status.

"We can say that all day long until they pour the foundation out there," he said. "We won't know what's going in."