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Public Safety Committee approves $650,000 programming phase for county jail study
Summary
Rutherford County’s Public Safety Committee voted to spend $650,000 to enter a six-month programming phase to study options for the county’s aging detention facility, with the recommendation to be forwarded to property management and the budget committee.
Rutherford County’s Public Safety Committee voted Thursday to advance a two-year jail study into a six-month programming phase at an estimated cost of $650,000, the first formal step toward deciding whether to renovate the existing detention center or build a new facility.
The committee’s decision followed a multi-hour briefing from the mayor’s jail study working group, the county sheriff and two outside consultants. The mayor, introducing the discussion, said the purpose was information-gathering, not a decision to build: “Tonight is not about do we build a new facility, do we renovate a new facility,” the mayor said during the presentation.
Sheriff Mike Fitzhugh told the committee the county’s detention complex — parts of which date to 1987 and 1998 — has been repeatedly altered to increase capacity and now faces serious physical‑plant and operational limits. He warned the jail’s overcrowding and out‑of‑date infrastructure put the county at risk during state inspections. The sheriff…
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