FAYETTEVILLE -- Two Democrats vying for the job of Washington County judge had the stage to themselves Monday and shone a spotlight on their similarities as well as their differences.
Josh Moody and Charles Ward fielded questions from a moderator and from members of the audience at a candidates forum that presented contenders for Washington County judge and prosecuting attorney.
The forum was presented by the Washington County League of Women Voters and the Arkansas Justice Reform Coalition.
The organizers invited all six of the county judge candidates whose names appear on the ballots in the May 24 Democratic Party primary and the Republican Party primary. Moody and Ward are seeking the Democratic Party nomination. The four Republican party candidates -- Patrick Deakins, Sharon Lloyd, Mark Scalise and Tom Terminella -- did not attend the event.
The winners of the party primary elections will be on the ballot in the November general election.
Both Moody and Ward said they are running as agents of change in county government.
Moody said county government has become partisan and dysfunctional, mirroring a trend toward divisiveness seen in national politics. He said that kind of politics is misplaced on the county level.
"County government should be nonpartisan," Moody said. "There is no Democratic or Republican way to run a road grader."
Ward said county government has become "stagnant" in recent years and has failed to keep up with growth and change in Washington County and Northwest Arkansas. He said the region is seeing a growing population and growing problems like homelessness, poverty and crime.
"We've got to be able to change to deal with it," he said.
The two men agreed that county government needs to be open and transparent and both promised to have an "open door" policy if elected.
A proposed expansion of the Washington County Detention Center highlighted some of the differences between the pair.
The Sheriff's Office proposed an expansion of the jail in 2018, citing crowding as a continuing problem. The jail has a design capacity of 710 beds, but is generally considered to be at capacity when about 80% of the beds are occupied due to legal requirement for separating different classifications of detainees.
The Quorum Court didn't support the 2018 proposal, opting to have a study done to examine alternatives to incarceration. The county's Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee was formed to study the problem and suggest solutions.
A more recent proposal prompted by the covid-19 pandemic would add 232 beds and space for quarantining and isolating detainees for health reasons, add more space to the intake, medical and courts areas and storage and administrative space. That committee is still studying potential alternatives including a mental health court and expanded pretrial services to get detainees out of jail in less time than the court system have traditionally taken.
The most recent proposal would cost about $20 million if approved by the Quorum Court and take two to three years to complete. Some justices of the peace have proposed using some of Washington County's $46 million in American Rescue Plan money to pay for the expansion, while others have questions whether a jail expansion would meet federal guidelines for the use of the money.
Moody said he does not support the proposed expansion and opposes using the federal covid-19 relief funds to pay for it.
Moody said the study commissioned by the county in 2019 included a dozen recommendations and only one of them, the formation of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee, has been adopted. He said the county needs to expand some existing programs, like the drug court and veterans court and add new programs like a mental health court modelled after one operating in Craighead County.
"If we implement all of the recommendations in the study, I don't think the jail expansion would be necessary," he said.
Ward said he believes the jail expansion is needed but he added that using the covid-relief money to pay for the project "is not the correct way to do this"
Ward said the population growth in the area makes the jail expansion unavoidable. While the construction would take some years to complete, he said, any new programs will also need years to take effect and be evaluated.
"I don't think we have any choice but to expand the jail," he said.
County judge
County judges are the chief executive officers for Arkansas county governments, overseeing the county road department and other departments and maintaining county facilities. County judges serve four-year terms. The salary for Washington County judge is $141,470 annually.
Source: Staff report