Brown County Commissioners approved a lease Monday with G4S Youth Services concerning partial use of the Brown County Juvenile Justice property, formerly known as the Ron Jackson Unit 2, which is now used for the county’s juvenile probation offices and juvenile holding facility.
As discussed at the previous court meeting last Monday, commissioners were considering leasing the building to G4S Youth Services after opening sealed bids from G4S and another company, Rite of Passage. According to Brown County Judge Ray West, the Rite of Passage bid contained a contingency regarding the company being awarded a contract with a state entity, and commissioners said that they would reject it because of the contingency.
Commissioners needed some clarifications on the G4S Youth Services bid at the time and no action was taken at last Monday’s meeting. G4S Youth Services is an international company operating privatized youth detention services whose North American corporate offices are located in Florida.
This week’s meeting of the court held on Monday, March 11 recessed into executive session twice to consider the bid. After the second executive session, the public session of the court reconvened and commissioners voted on the lease with no details being released to the public until the lease is recorded for public record. The vote was 3-1 in favor of the lease with County Judge Ray West, Commissioner Precinct 1 Gary Worley and Commissioner Precinct 3 Wayne Shaw voting in favor of the lease and Commissioner Precinct 2 Joel Kelton being in opposition.
Kelton stated that he had questions about the lease, which he felt was a good lease overall, but that he had to vote his conscience.
“Overall the bid and what they are going to do, I’m pleased with,” said Kelton who stated that he could not discuss the details of the bid until it was released to public record which will be next Monday, March 18th after commissioners approve the minutes of today’s meeting.
The property’s ownership was transferred to Brown County by the State of Texas, after the closing of the Ron Jackson Unit II facility of the Texas Department of Juvenile Justice. The property includes several buildings which are located on approximately 37 acres. Currently, Brown County utilizes a small portion of the main building as their Juvenile Justice Center, which is a temporary holding facility for juvenile offenders. The county’s Juvenile Detention Offices will continue to be housed at the Unit II main building.
West stated during last week’s meeting that the county wanted to secure a lease agreement with a company that will operate out of the facility in exchange for maintaining the grounds and buildings as well as making some much needed costly repairs on the facility; however, details were not available if the accepted bid included such consideration in lieu of monetary lease payment.
