CCNO Talks About Change

Action on pro­posed changes to the oper­at­ing agree­ment for the Cor­rec­tions Cen­ter of North­west Ohio were delayed this week, to allow offi­cials from the City of Toledo and Lucas County to con­tinue talks. CCNO offi­cials had gath­ered Wednes­day expect­ing to dis­cuss some 11 pro­posed changes to the oper­at­ing agree­ment that were prompted by two recent meet­ings of a spe­cial ad hoc com­mit­tee. Instead, Toledo Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson and Lucas County Com­mis­sioner Pete Gerken agreed to a two-week exten­sion to allow con­tin­ued talks between the two enti­ties. A spe­cial board meet­ing was sched­uled for May 13. The changes to the 27-year-old CCNO oper­at­ing agree­ment — which has been revised four other times — were prompted when Toledo stopped its prac­tice of arrest­ing offend­ers under its munic­i­pal codes and, instead, charged under state law shift­ing the incar­cer­a­tion costs to Lucas County. The issue was referred to the spe­cial ad hoc com­mit­tee that came up with draft lan­guage to revise the CCNO oper­at­ing agree­ment. At Wednesday’s meet­ing, CCNO Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Jim Den­nis reported 100 par­tic­i­pants in the elec­tronic mon­i­tor­ing pro­gram. He said the largest increase were those on GPS and TAD pro­vid­ing addi­tional com­mu­nity account­abil­ity. Defi­ance County Com­mis­sioner Otto Nicely asked that area judges increase their use since there is fund­ing for indi­gents. Den­nis reported Wednesday’s pop­u­la­tion at 545 or 85 per­cent… down a bit com­pared to February’s aver­age count of 577 or 90 per­cent and March which stood at 585 or 92 percent.