Judge Upholds Jail Contract Between Chelan County and City of Wenatchee

Chelan County Regional Justice Center must continue to house people arrested by Wenatchee Police Department while a lawsuit over jail services continues.

Superior Court Judge Travis Brandt handed the ruling Tuesday, stating the jail contract between the city and Chelan County must remain in force beyond the Aug. 28 deadline the county set to withdraw from the agreement.

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"If the city of Wenatchee didn't prevail over that we were threatened to not have a place to put any of our inmates after the end of August," said Mayor Mike Poirer after the ruling. "Wenatchee Police officers, if they see someone with a warrant, they need to pick that person up and not be refused."

Wenatchee filed a lawsuit against Chelan County in late March, alleging the jail refused to book some inmates brought in by city police officers on low-level offenses, and turned down offers from the city to increase the amount it pays for contract inmates from $1.6 million to $2.2 million a year.

"We want to make sure it's a fair and just system," Mayor Poirer said. "I believe the jail had occupancy... For us it was more important to make sure our taxpayers get what they pay for and I didn't believe in the existing contract we were getting fair services for what we were paying for."

After contract talks failed, Chelan County served the city notice it would terminate the contract. Brandt's ruling means the jail must continue to accept city inmates until a new agreement is reached.

Chelan County Commissioner Shon Smith said the county is ready to enter arbitration with the city.

"The city should be paying its full cost to use the Chelan County Regional Justice Center," Smith said. "We've done a lot of calculations over the past couple of years and figured that Wenatchee is using a lion's share of that without paying that portion, so we're trying to equalize it across all the users of the jail."

Smith noted one issue is the capacity to house inmates of lower-level crimes, such as theft, and he said many of those arrested are detoxing from drugs and alcohol. Until the jail recently installed a total of 68 medical sensors in cells.

He said this will help the jail take more inmates moving forward.

"Now we have those in place and we used opioid settlement dollars to finish installing that," Smith said. "It's a wireless monitoring system, and the inmate doesn't even realize it's up there, but we know it's up there and it monitors their heartrate and respiration so we can tell when someone is in distress and get to them quicker."

In the lawsuit, the city listed about 212 instances in 2024 where the jail declined to admit a suspect booked by Wenatchee police.