Coy Privette will play the leading role in an exciting week for Cabarrus County Politics.

Coy Privette is set to play the staring role in a busy political week for Cabarrus County.

First of, we have the County Commissioners meeting in the County Governmental Center, tomorrow at 6.30. The one item on the agenda that will draw the most interest deals with the whole downtown jail issue.

During their last meeting the Commissioners agreed to try and reach a final compromise on the design of the jail building. This debate is not about the Jail Annex/Sheriff's headquarters building which you can currently watch being constructed on the corner of Corban Ave SE and Corban Ave SW. The issue of the debate is the actual jail housing unit which is to be built directly behind the annex. Commissioner Mynatt and White were charged with meeting with opponents of the current jail plans and try to reach a compromise over a new plan. In return for the new plans opponents would drop the lawsuit they have pending against the City of Concord, challenging the city's approval of a conditional use permit for construction of the jail.
The 2 commissioners and the jail opponents did indeed come up with a compromise proposal and the complete County Commission will vote on this proposal during Monday's meeting.

The proposed compromise from plaintiffs cuts two stories from the main housing unit, reduces the number of beds to 288, extends the housing unit to the east and relocates a laundry and loading dock. Combined with a 96-bed jail annex set to open at the downtown site this fall, that would make for a total of 384 inmate beds.
A reconfiguration of the jail project will require $375,000 and three months of design work. While the redesign would cost the county $375,000 now, the reconfigured building would cost $19 million less than the current design.
However, Jail and county officials have said projections show that 350-384 beds would be at capacity upon the opening of the new jail. So the $19 million not spent if commissioners choose the redesigned jail will be spent to purchase land and build another housing unit at an out of town site. Nobody seems to know right now if that $19 million would be enough to build that new jail unit.

Two commissioners, Joni Juba and Bob Carruth, seem to want to stay with the current design. Two others, Grace Mynatt and Jay White, seem to favor a redesign.
That would leave Commissioner Coy Privette, who has not attended a commission meeting since he was charged July 19 with six misdemeanor counts of aiding and abetting prostitution, to cast the deciding vote. In the past opponents of the jail could count Privette on their side. It remains to be seen if Privette will show up at tomorrow's meeting to support them again. According to an article in the Independent Tribune, Privette told County Manager John Day that his attendance at the meeting is “under consideration.” I highly doubt that he will show up. If he doesn't he will apparently have completely given up on his political career and he will abandon a lot of jail opponents who have voted for him in the past. It's time to put up or shut up Mr. Privette.


In his second staring role Coy Privette will show up in the Rowan County Court house on Wednesday, to hear the verdict on His prostitution charges.
From what I could find out online it appears that his case is set for Wednesday morning August 22nd at 9 am in Court Room 1 of the Rowan County Court House in Salisbury. His Judge apparently will be Beth Dixon, a registered Republican.
The charges Privette faces are misdemeanors, so more than likely if he's found to be guilty he will just get a slap on the wrist and will have to pay a fine. As a consequence though his political career will be over.

I plan on attending both "events" and will tell you more about my observations right here.