BRADFORD COUNTY, Fla. — Plans for an ICE detention facility in Bradford County are on pause for the foreseeable future.
County commissioners told Action News Jax they don’t expect anything related to those plans to come before the board, at least for the rest of the year.
It comes after the board of county commissioners declined to approve a five-year lease of the warehouse that would be converted into the detention facility to the Sheriff’s Office Thursday.
During the commission meeting Concerns about the proposed ICE detention center raised by Bradford residents ranged from the moral.
“We need to decide what our legacy is going to be. Do we continue down the road of hate, racism and greed, or do we choose local growth with local people and local jobs?” said Bradford resident Maria Garrett.
To the practical.
“We know that vision is to warehouse ultimately 3,000 humans 24/7 on the property with a staff of 1,200. We know that providing water and sewer under those conditions would be a lot more intensive than required for warehousing non-sentient stuff rather than humans,” said Bradford resident Carol Mosley.
And even environmental concerns surrounding soil contamination on the site of the proposed facility.
“That contamination could most likely spread and how far that would go and that’s a risk I’m not willing to take,” said Bradford resident Dianne Williams.
Dozens of residents from Bradford and surrounding counties spoke in opposition to the proposed facility, which would be built around a county-owned warehouse on US 301 in Starke.
Bradford County Commissioners were asked to approve a five-year lease that would have put the property in the hands of the Sheriff’s Office and allowed plans for the ICE facility to move forward.
Bradford County Sheriff Gordon Smith argued by not approving the lease, the ICE facility plans would fall through.
“It was just an opportunity to bring 1,200 jobs, but after tonight I can sleep easy. I’ve wasted a lot of nights worrying about it,” said Smith.
But commissioners argued they hadn’t been given enough time to consider other options.
That included a local company that had shown interest in leasing the property for industrial use, which couldn’t be considered if the lease for the sheriff was approved.
“We are getting rushed into something that I can’t vote on,” said Commissioner Kenny Thompson (R-District 2).
The commission declined to vote on the lease agreement.
Before wrapping, Board Chair Carolyn Spooner (D-District 1) acknowledged she’d tried to pull the lease agreement from the agenda when she realized it wouldn’t be presented alongside other options for the property, prompting a sharp comment from Sheriff Smith.
“You will never know now because I don’t have a chance to move forward to give you a proposal, but hey, thank you for your concern for Bradford County,” said Smith.
Despite the Sheriff suggesting the decision not to approve the lease agreement this week likely ended any possibility of converting the warehouse into an ICE detention facility, Ia spokesperson within his office told Action News Jax Smith doesn’t see the project as “dead”, rather he views Thursday’s development as a “bump in the road”.
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