"We knew it was an uphill battle, but my biggest disappointment is that 15% (voter turnout)," Commissioner Pam White said. "That means there's 85% of the voters that did not weigh in on public safety."

This was the county's fourth failed attempt since 2006 to pay for a new jail with a bond. 

County officials, while disappointed in the outcome of the bond, said the message of the vote was clear.

"I believe the vote is reflective of what we are hearing from property taxpayers: They believe that their property taxes are high enough already," Commissioner Tom Dale said. "How do we pay for these services that we are required to provide and keep the property tax reasonable?"

Dozens of Canyon County residents shared their reasons for voting against the bond via the Idaho Press Facebook page and email. 

"Maybe if they want to raise sales tax or something to get the money," wrote Nampa resident Diana Stanford on Facebook. "But I will never vote for it as long as the only people carrying the financial burden are the property owners."

Others said elected officials should focus more on sentencing reform.  

"Idaho has more people in its correctional system than any other state in the country, which is saying something for the country with 25 percent of the world's prison population and more prisoners than communist China," wrote A.J. Ellis on Facebook. "It needs judicial reform, not more spending. Milking the tax victims for a new jail to warehouse more people is no solution."

Another resident, Ann McPherson Harms, said Canyon County's population growth would only mean a more expensive jail down the road. 

"The longer we wait to build the jail the more it will cost," she wrote. "The population of Canyon County continues to grow at a rapid pace. In order to keep up with the increasing number of inmates and avoid future lawsuits we need to get this jail built."

Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue said the need for a new jail would not abate with time, and "people who should be in jail will continue to be let out due to lack of space."

"That said, I think it’s important to note that I do not have the statutory authority to build a building or run a jail bond," Donahue wrote in an email. "Those responsibilities lie solely with the Board of County Commissioners.”

All three commissioners told the Idaho Press it was too early to consider a bond or advisory vote on the November ballot, although it was unlikely. Instead, Dale and Donahue said they would be working with the Idaho Association of Counties to get a local option sales tax bill in the 2020 legislative session.

Commissioner Leslie Van Beek said while the local option tax does spread the tax burden over anyone who purchases in Canyon County, it’s still an additional burden on county taxpayers. Instead, she hopes her new county task force will establish a capital improvement fund from new construction, expiring property tax incentives and sunsetting urban renewal that will pay for the significant county projects like the jail.

"The fact we did not have a bond that passed doesn’t mean that there’s no hope," Van Beek said. "We were elected to go back to the drawing board and see what works."

Even before the bond failed, Van Beek had been calling for other funding solutions, such as "reallocating urban renewal dollars and expiring tax incentives, allocating a percentage of new construction toward debt service and supplementing those options with other identified revenue sources in order to get to the annual payment amount for debt service," she said in a May 16 guest opinion piece in the Idaho Press.

In the column, she said voting against the jail bond "doesn’t mean you don’t want a new facility. It may mean that you want county commissioners to explore other financing options and couple those options with a smaller bond thereby limiting the amount of new property tax imposed on county residents."

With budget talks approaching, Van Beek said it's important to consider that Canyon County has raised taxes by $18 million in the last four years, mostly to fund necessary wage and salary increases.

"At the same time, only $2.3 million of the $18 million has been dedicated to address jail over-crowding issues," Van Beek told the Idaho Press in a follow-up email. "I object to raising taxes (asking citizens to do with less) in order to fund salary increases in lieu of addressing public safety needs."

TEMPORARY MEASURES

Before this year's jail bond failed, county officials were already worried about safely operating a consistently at-capacity jail until temporary housing for female inmates arrives this summer. The stainless steel truck trailers in the jail's parking lot will be able to house 122 female inmates. 

"I have no idea how we're going to make it through the next couple months," jail Capt. Daren Ward told the Idaho Press at a May 13 town hall meeting. "If May 22, the bond is passed, in three or four years we get to move in. I really don't know how we're going to make it."

Canyon County officials may be relying on the temporary jail trailers longer than they hoped. Caldwell Planning and Zoning approved a seven-year special use permit for the trailers. Once they're installed, one-quarter of the jail's 565 beds will be in structures originally pitched as "temporary."

The jail is consistently over the recommend 80 percent capacity. On May 22, the jail was at 91 percent capacity with 436 inmates, according to the county’s jail statistics website.

Even if the trailers will function as a stop-gap, Dale said county officials aren't planning to use them as a long-term solution. 

“The temporary jail trailers are intended to be just that,” Dale said. “And there is no thought at this time to make them permanent. That would be a very undesirable outcome.”