Column: Knock me over with a feather

Column: Knock me over with a feather

By Dan Kontos

Well I have to say that I didn’t think this day would ever come. After many years, no decades, Portage County finally held its groundbreaking ceremony for the new jail and law enforcement center.

I’ve told you many times about the need for Portage County to have a new jail, and the work has been ongoing ever since I can remember caring about this subject. The biggest hang-up wasn’t about the need for the jail. That has been clearly established. The hang-up wasn’t the funding. Portage County could easily come up with that. The hang-up, honestly, was with the City of Stevens Point.

After years of wrangling over the location and size of the new facility, the county simply triggered the nuclear option and decided to build the jail outside the city limits. Now, on a conveniently located plot of land in the Village of Plover, that construction can take place.

The jail does not need to be within the limits of the county seat, unlike the courthouse, and the county decided to do just that. Would the county have the same problem with a different administration in the city if it had simply waited? Who knows, but time was not on the side of th...