Residents fear halfway house plan
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By Tory Brecht | Wednesday, November 01, 2006 |
Davenport Zoning Board of Adjustment meetings typically are quick, quiet affairs.
But a big battle between worried neighbors and the Iowa 7th Judicial District’s Department of Correctional Services could be waged before the board at its Nov. 15 meeting.
The corrections department is asking for a special-use permit to move its halfway house for convicted criminals from 605 Main St. to the former Sears building at 806 W. 4th St.
The proposal includes increasing the number of work-release prisoners — those who are eligible for overnight and weekend furloughs as well as other privileges — from 84 to 120.
Many residents of the nearby Gold Coast & Hamburg Historic District are appalled by the plan.
“We’ve worked really hard to try and improve our neighborhood,” said Duane Timm, who lives at the intersection of 5th and Gaines streets. “Having this move right outside our boundaries is not a wonderful thing. I think it will increase a lot of transient and criminal element. I realize not all people are like that.”
Timm and about 50 other neighbors packed the Cafe John Lewis at 6th and Vine streets Monday night to hear from Jim Wayne, director of the corrections department in the 7th Judicial District. He tried to assuage their concerns, but few in the audience altered their stance after hearing him.
“We create a presence in the neighborhood which I think deters criminal behavior,” Wayne said, noting that there are always at least two corrections employees at the facility 24 hours a day and that the prisoners’ trips in and out are closely monitored.
“That’s not to say it’s going to go away or that we won’t have some people in our facility that will engage in crimes because that does happen as well. But I don’t think it puts that neighborhood at greater risk.”
Alderman Ray Ambrose, 4th Ward, strongly disagrees.
“We’re fighting this huge crime problem, yet they want to increase the number of criminals in Davenport,” he said. “It’s just outrageous.”
Ambrose long has railed against putting corrections facilities in the central city. Too many of the released inmates stick around town, latching onto the social services readily available in Davenport’s so-called “government corridor,” he said.
“The prison system they have here in Davenport, we’re getting 1,000 early-release folks a year who come here, get hooked up on the Davenport dole and stay on it until they go back to prison,” he said. “They need to take a look at moving all their facilities out of Davenport.”
Neighbors also were disturbed to learn that the facility houses at any given time several sex offenders who are not bound by the state’s 2,000-foot rule preventing them from living near schools, parks, churches and other designated areas.
“The whole thing is, how can you have a facility with sexual offenders next to a park?” asked Timm, referring to Lafayette Park, which sits adjacent to the former Sears building. “They said they’re exempt from those rules. You can’t have a sex offender in your house, but they can have them there.”
The proposed facility also would be within 2,000 feet of Marquette Academy, a private school.
Wayne said the sex offenders in the facility all are treated in-house and that compliance with their sentences is monitored. In addition, those convicted of abusing minors are required to wear a GPS tracking device on their person, he said.
The existing halfway house facility at 605 Main St. is within 2,000 feet of a school and has been there since 1987.
Clayton Lloyd, Davenport’s economic and community development director, said city staff will make a recommendation to the zoning board on whether a special-use permit should be granted. The board, however, does not need staff or City Council approval to allow a permit.
The staff will judge the project based on whether the nature of the use and the facility’s operation are appropriate within the C4, or central business district, zoning designation. That designation is slightly more permissive than the C2, or general commercial use, category the current halfway house is in, he added.
No recommendation has been formed, Lloyd said.
“Our staff will review and judge whether or not the conditions for a special-use permit have been met,” he said. “We will be attentive and listening to the views of the public. Already, from some contacts I have made, there’s a sense there is opposition and concern.”
Tory Brecht can be contacted at (563) 383-2329 or tbrecht@qctimes.com.
What’s next?
The Gold Coast & Hamburg Historic District neighborhood association is conducting a second meeting to discuss the proposed reuse of the former Sears department store building on 4th Street in downtown Davenport as a halfway house for work release prisoners.
The meeting will be held at Cafe John Lewis, 932 W. 6th St. at 6 p.m. Thursday.
The matter will come before the Davenport Zoning Board of Adjustment, which has the power to grant or refuse a special use permit to the 7th Judicial District Department of Correctional Services.
That meeting is scheduled for 4 p.m. Nov. 15 at City Hall.
About the plan
The 7th Judicial District Department of Correctional, or DOC, Services has operated a halfway house for work release prisoners in downtown Davenport since the early 1980s. It’s current location at 605 Main St. has been in operation since 1987.
Problems with mold and a need to accommodate more inmates led the DOC to search for new locations. The agency has an agreement to buy the former Sears department store at 806 W. 4th St. from C&H Development Co. of Dubuque for $2 million.
Jim Wayne, judicial director for the agency, said the halfway house’s population consists of three types of inmates.
That includes people coming out of the Iowa corrections system that are on work release; inmates of the federal prison system who are either on work release or sentenced to community programs; and those serving felony drunk-driving prison sentences, typically for a third or greater offense.
He said 80 percent of the population is originally from the Quad-City metropolitan area.
Another 15 percent or so are from surrounding Iowa counties with the remaining 5 percent from elsewhere, many from the Chicago area.
The facility is minimum security. Those on work release must check out and are required to only go to and from their job.
Staff monitors compliance by calling employers and investigating work reports. Inmates that display good behavior and whose sentences are winding down are granted increasing privileges, such as daytime, overnight and weekend furloughs. Those, too, are monitored, Wayne said.
“I think programs such as ours have been deemed to reduce recidivism and reduce failures,” he said. “The better we do our job, the safer the community is.”
— Tory Brecht
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