A committee was formed last week by the Marshall County Community Corrections Advisory Board to seek information on the future location of Marshall County Community Corrections.
Currently, the Probation Department and Community Corrections Department are in separate buildings several blocks away which Community Corrections Director Ward Byers says sometimes confuses clients.
Community Corrections currently has a five-year lease at the Community Resource Center on Adams Street in Plymouth and Advisory Board Chairman Superior Court No. 2 Judge Dean Colvin authorized the formation of the committee charged with the relocation or reestablishing a location for Community Corrections in the future, which may result in consolidation of a location with the Probation Department.
“I think that’s the best avenue for us,” said Colvin. “I hate to see us come down to a year before our lease expires and say, ‘Okay what are we going to do?’ and then we’re left with, ‘alright we’ll just roll it over and just keep spending.’ It’s going to go up. I think we have an obligation as a group here to be fiscally responsible with the money the State gives us and who knows from this point on what the State will continue to give us from the Department of Corrections.”
He added that the plans could include a footprint for Community Corrections with office space, meeting space, privacy, improved communication, and security with anticipated growth.
Byers said the Community Resource Center is a place where residents can find a lot of needed information and programs in one place, but the same idea needs to happen for court services.
Byers commented, “A one-stop shop and all the resources an individual needs are right there in one building and I think that’s what we need to look at as a vision for community supervision moving forward in Marshall County. I’ll even throw in an extra piece to that. I think that given what we’ve been dealing with in Community Corrections, the topic of a residential facility attached to that is not out of the question.”
Newly appointed Superior Court No. 3 Judge Matt Sarber offered to chair the committee with volunteers Marshall County Council President Tim Harman, Plymouth Mayor Mark Senter, Chief Probation Officer James Bendy, Lindi Leary from the Bowen Center, and Sam Schlosser.
