It’s no surprise people are still worried about the location for the new Eau Claire County Jail.

Senior Ernest Ruiz said he would like to have the jail far away from the UW-Eau Claire campus.

“Personally, I think a jail should be out in the middle of nowhere,” he said.

One of the possible sites for the jail is adjacent to the courthouse and the other is by Prairie Lane on the north side of Eau Claire, said Mel Erickson, director of planning and development for the Eau Claire County.

“If (the committee) wants to have an alternate (site) they will go back to the previous sites they looked at,” Erickson said, adding it is likely the committee won’t be looking to have an alternate site, as members will come up with a decision at the next meeting on March 19.

If everything goes according to plan and a decision is made on that date, Erickson said he would help put a report together by April 2 that would be approved by the committee then forwarded to the County Board for their consideration the next time they meet on April 21.

“If the committee doesn’t come up with a decision by (April 19) they still have one more meeting,” Erickson said. “But if they don’t make it by April 2 . they wouldn’t have a report yet, so they would have to figure out some way for, maybe, the chair of the committee to approve the report so it can be forwarded to the County Board, but that will probably not happen.”

Since the committee’s first meeting in September, people have opposed to having the new jail by the courthouse. Committee member Maureen Slauson is one of them.

“It’s not about having (the jail) in this neighborhood,” she said, “because I do live in this neighborhood, but we have to anticipate we are going to grow.”

She said she would like to see the number of inmates go down, but they have to anticipate that number will grow.

“We need to have more room for expansion,” Slauson said. “My concern is that (the courthouse) is pretty locked away; I think our historic neighborhood should be protected.”

Ruiz agreed and said the new jail will create a big problem when re-arranging the roads.

“I don’t really think there’s space around the courthouse,” he said, “unless they took away the trails by it, which would mean destroying the surrounding nature.”

Erickson said a motion was made in the March 5 meeting to have the jail off campus – away from the courthouse. The motion was seconded, but then the person that presented the motion removed it because the decision should be taken more appropriately.

Erickson said the motion might be reintroduced at their next meeting.

Slauson said there may be people who say they have to come up with a decision by March 19, but there will also be people who might want to keep searching.

“It’s a big decision,” she said. “There has to be some type of recommendation and suggestions by the committee to search other sites.”