By Mark Coddington
mark.coddington@theindependent.com

The news of the 3,024-2,566 vote in favor of the project was met by cheers and hugs from supporters gathered in Kearney's Ramada Inn on Thursday night.

"It was pretty loud," Buffalo County Supervisor Tim Loewenstein said later.

The vote was the culmination of years of work by the Buffalo County Board of Supervisors and a two-month blitz of meetings throughout the county with judges and representatives from the board and the county sheriff's department.

Loewenstein said seeing the county's affirmation of the board's plan was humbling.

"The community looked at it and said, 'We've done our homework, and we've done our research, and we've done what's best for the long-term health of the community,'" he said. "And they trusted us."

The plan, which includes a 201-bed jail and five new courtrooms, has been in the works from the board since at least 2003 as the first two phases of a project that would eventually overhaul the entire courthouse.

The new courtroom area would be built at the site of the current jail, and the jail would be added to the courthouse's southeast side, where the old county surveyor's building currently sits.

The project was born out of a shortage of space in the jail, along with security concerns in the courtroom areas.

The jail's average daily population has consistently run over its 76-bed capacity for much of the past year, topping 90 in some months.

That overcrowding has forced the county to regularly send inmates to neighboring Dawson County, for about $45 a day, compared with the $28.80 it costs to house them in Kearney.

The new building would also include more space for staff members and a radial design, similar to that of the new Hall County Detention Center.

In the courts, four full-time judges currently work out of a space that includes two makeshift courtrooms, with one that's also a jury room.

With seven entrances to the building and no separate hallway between the jail and courtrooms, county officials were also concerned about security in the court area.

The 30-year bond will cost no more than 6 cents annually per $100 of taxable valuation, or $60 per $100,000.

Loewenstein said the board hopes to begin dirt work on the center in June. The jail is expected to take 17 to 18 months to finish, to be followed by 12 to 14 months of work to complete the courthouse addition.

Steve Buttress, chairman of the Buffalo County Justice Center Advisory Committee, a group of citizens that promoted the project, said the county's trust of its longtime sheriff, Neil Miller, and his deputies was instrumental in the bond's passage.

Both he and Loewenstein said Tuesday night that the project showed that Buffalo County is a progressive, forward-thinking one that will continue to attract new businesses and residents.

"What encourages me is that in a growing community, people are willing to invest what they need to invest to keep its facilities in good shape," Buttress said. "We just need to keep making the investments that support a growing community."