Grant County Still Looking at Options for New Jail After Original Proposal Rejected

The Grant County Sheriff's Office still has plans for a new jail to be built in the town of Ephrata.

Port of Ehrata Commissioners unanimously rejected a proposal to build the jail on its land, but Sheriff Tom Jones is hopeful some sort of arrangement can be made.

"I know that the county commissioners are still interested in seeing the new correctional facility in the County Seat of Ephrata," said Jones. "So, we'll hopefully start looking relatively soon at other options as far as property goes and then move forward."

Jones says one option is to build the jail on land that was previously home to the Grant County Work Release Center. But doing so would require demolition of the Work Release Center building, which the county does not want to do.

Jones says the sheriff's office and the county government will have to regroup and study their options. "We're going to have to meet again and, kind of, decide where we want to go, or if the current work release facility location is a viable option and what that looks like," Jones said.

Grant County voters approved sales tax money to build a new jail in 2019.

Port of Ehrata Commissions' say they rejected a plan to sell acreage of their land near the old Work Release Center to the county because their mission statement calls for that land to be used for the purpose of creating jobs.

They say the land requested by the county sits in the middle of the Port’s industrial park.