The obstacle to reopening a Charlotte juvenile jail is our sheriff (01-07-2026--Hour2)

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepeakclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. All righty, So, the story that. The local media is focusing on today is that Mecklinberg County Sheriff Gary not my fault. McFadden refused to comment about the court petition filed by five people in Mecklinberg County for former employees and one sitting state lawmaker seeking his removal from office. Last night, he had a pre scheduled before the petition was filed and became public. Scheduled a meeting to talk about the reopening of Jail North. Jail North was the juvenile detention facility. This facility was closed in twenty twenty two under McFadden's leadership. At the time it was they claimed it was COVID related. They had staffing shortages, and so we had to close Jail North to transfer his employees out of the juvenile facility to the Central Jail Okay. And then since twenty twenty two, we have been bussing the Mecklenburg juvenile arrestees up to Cabaris County to the state facility there, and we've been paying the state three million dollars a year roughly to house them there. However, if we were to house them here, we would keep that three million dollars and the state would pay us four to five million dollars. So that's roughly an eight million dollar or so savings that Mecklimberg County would realize to offset the cost of operating Jail North, which McFadden at the forum last night said he put the cost to reopen it and to staff it at about fifteen and a half million dollars, So half of that is already can already be taken care of. I don't and by the way, I don't trust these numbers from McFadden, because they do they're not all inclusive, and they don't include the offsets. When he gave his slideshow presentation, he did not include any of the state offsets. He was just like, he's going to cost us fifteen and a half million dollars. Well, then the state guy who was there, his name Billy Lasseter or William Lassiter, the Department of Public Safety deputy secretary. He then outlines, well, you know the three million dollars that you keep, the four to five million dollars that the state would pay you. Oh, and also the costs which were not broken down in McFadden's slide show the costs of feeding the inmates. The state would pay for that, and the state would pay for the Medicaid for medical services, so that wasn't included. So I don't even trust these numbers that McFadden gave last night. But McFadden keeps claiming that he wanted to keep Jail North open, and I believe him that he wanted to keep it open. But the caveat here is that only if it's under his control. He doesn't ever say that, but that's very obvious at this point after watching that forum last night, it is quite obvious that the only way McFadden allows that Jail North to open is if he maintains control over all the hiring, over all the employees and everybody at that forum wanted the Juvenile Detention Facility to reopen. Media is not covering what was said during the forum and the options that were presented during the forum. Now, last hour, I played a clip where McFadden makes a comment about how it's so difficult for him to recruit staff because people will just go to work at a gas station making sixty five thousand dollars a year. And again, I'm not sure what the starting salary of a gas station attendant is. I would be shocked if it is sixty five k a year. I'm in the wrong line of work. But that told me that that's the starting salary that he's paying his detention officers sixty five k. Okay, why is that important? He says he cannot recruit enough people. He can't staff up Jail North to re then because he can't hire ninety six people, and he kept saying ninety six people, ninety six staff, ninety six staff. He kept saying it over and over and over again. We can't hire it, we can't onboard that many people, we can't train that many people. Nobody wants to work for that low of a pay scale. But then William Lassiter from the State he says, actually, the state would be happy to help with restaffing where it can. The state would help them. Now, when the facility opened, we actually when it did the training for them, the basic training for juvenile justice, they also did the regular detention officer training, so they were duly certified in both detention officer and as a juvenile officer. And so we provide that training. We would be glad to do that again. We also helped hell It paid this year over Tom so that he could have staff while good staff are engaged in training, he could have his other original staff come in and back up. There's other staff. So we did a lot of upfront cost in the contract. We're willing to do that again. No, but I agree with the year. Staffing is the office part. That's the topice part for us at Caviers. I have a forty percent vacancy rate right now at Cavier's. Is a we pay a lot less than the year we started thirty seven thousand. He starts around fifty five, right or fifty somewhere in the higher okay, even higher than that. I can recruit right now if you need me too, higher than that. Remember earlier he said they can go work at QT for sixty five k. So either that's the same amount of money or it's a little bit higher than what the sheriff's offering starting salaries for detention officers Cabaris County forty percent vacancy. You know what the vacancy is at the Sheriff's office. It's about forty percent. So tell me what am I to conclude when and the state is offering starting pay at thirty seven thousand in Cabaris, Mecklenburg is offering almost twice that amount, and we have the same vacancy level. What does that do to. Why would people take the job working for the state in Cabarras County but not try to almost double their salary by just coming across the state line or the county line into Mecklemburg. Why not go to work for McFadden and make sixty five to start? Is there something else that might be driving people's decisions not to want to work for Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office even though it's going to almost double your salary. Hmm, gosh, it's a brain buster. It's the difference in employers. People don't want to work for him I keep saying this, and I'm not just I'm not making this up. I'm not just saying that. I'm saying it because this is what people who work for McFadden have worked for McFadden, what they have said. Once again, I point out he had his two chief deputies both quit after only nine months on the job of peace and when they quit, they went public with their massive letter of resignation outlining all of the abuses of power, the manipulation, the narcissism, the micromanagement, what they would constantly call his refusal to follow a chain of command. And we went over these allegations that were in this petition that was filed by four of his former employees along with a sitting state representative, seeking his ouster through the criminal courts, which is state law. You can do that. I've been advocating that for three years. After he won reelection, I was like, this guy needs to be removed. I went looking up the state law to what do you do with the sheriff. I went looking it up and there it is in the state statute. Here's how you remove somebody from the sheriff's office. And they're following this process and the allegations now have been referred over to the State Bureau of Investigations by the Mecklenburg District Attorney. So that's the backdrop there, right. So the allegations about how he runs the sheriff's office have been out there. For almost eight years. People have known this. Now. It would also point out that at the state level, and this is what Lasseter said last night, both the House and the Senate in their budgets their proposals, they're raising salaries by more than ten percent, but because they haven't agreed on a budget yet, those raises haven't kicked in for these state employees. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. Stories connect us to the people of our past while transcending generations. They help us process the meaning of life, and our stories are told through images and videos. 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All right, So to open the closed uh Jail North juvenile detention facility, there are several proposals that have been made. Some are ridiculous, they come from Sheriff not my fault, McFadden, and some are rejected by Sheriff, not my fault mcfatten, even though they are obvious solutions to the problem. William Lassiter spoke at this public forum last night and he was asked by the District Court Judge Aretha Blake, what other options are there to reopen Jail North or another juvenile jail facility in Mecklenburg County. And here was his answer, Oh, that's not the right sound bit. It hang on a second, I'm looking for seven there we go, Well, we did. We did send a letter to the county banner, to the county commissioners, win the facility close. We offered to lease the facility so that the state could operate it ourselves. We offered to buy the facility outright and we would operate it as a state owned facility. At that point, we offered to obviously continue the contract with this year as an option. So those are the three big options that are we're on the table. So right now, the General Simby has provided for me forty eight million dollars to build a new facility. They're not willing for me to do that in Mecklinburg County because they say there's a facility already here, And they say, why would we spend ninety million dollars on building a facility Because mcliburg County planned is expensive, it's hard to have enough space for a juvenile facility. They say, why would we build a new facility in the county if there's one there that we wouldn't have to pay that type of money for its building in the in the county. So we're we're looking at other locations for that facility. But we've also asked a general simply to would often say, if there's an option here needs some capital money that helped the shareff with this facility with jail nor we're willing to pump some money into that facility, capital money to improve that out of that forty eight million that general simply has set aside for that purpose. But we just need to know what what the needs are as far as capital to do that with, and we need to make sure it's a truly a viable option before we do that. I don't want to spend money on a facility we end up not using, so leasing buying. I think the sheriff has said that, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but if this isn't correct, correct me. He doesn't want to go with the facility because he may need it. If you had a fire central jail, then he may need jail NORF is a backup or if there's a hurricane or whatever that's knocked out services of that facility, he may need jail NORF as a backup facility. So he doesn't want to sell it to me. He doesn't really want to lease it to me either, for that same purpose. And so really the option that we have here is either the shriff runs it out of that jail jail norp or the county would would do it as a step deal where we'd have a county department that would run that facility. And what I mean by that is maybe the Department of Social Services or some other group within the county could operate the facility as an option. And the reason why I just throw that one out there is that that ninety six staff that the sheriff is talking about, it may be easier to recruit if they're not being recruited as sheriffs deputy would as a social worker or as a youth counselor tech is what we call them, youth counsel in our facilities. So that is another option. I don't know if it's a viable option or not, but it's one that we do in other counties. Interesting, we have several options available to us. Just have the county run it and hire ute councilor techs as they are called in other counties, rather than just turning it over to the sheriff or sure, he won't lease it, he won't sell it, he won't continue the contract he can't keep staff. The state won't give the forty eight million dollars to the state agency to build another facility because we have a facility that is not being used, and McFadden says he can't possibly give it up because he needs the spare jail. He needs a spare jail just in case, which is absolutely absurd. I am not aware again, I'm not aware of another county mecklem in North Carolina that has a spare jail on backup in case of a hurricane, not even the ones that are in the paths of hurricanes. This seems like petty grievance politics by the sheriff. That's what this seems like. Oh, you're going to send your inspectors down and cite me and my jail. Okay, then you know what, I'm gonna shut down Jail North. I'm gonna move all of those employees back to Jail Central. That's what it's That's what it sure seems like. All right, Holiday football has arrived. Right with Draft Kings sportsbook and official sports betting partner of the NFL, the unexpected can turn game day into payday. And don't forget Draft Kings as your back with early exit. Pretty neat function here. If your player goes down in the first half, you still get paid in cash. Download the Draft Kings sports book app and use the code PETE. That's code PETE. New customers can bet five bucks and get two hundred dollars in bonus bets if your bet wins instantly. In partnership with Draft Kings, the Crown is yours. Gambling problem call one eight hundred gambler. In New York call eight seven seven eight hope and why, or text hope and why to four six seven three six nine. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling Call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org. 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But what became very clear last night is that there are options available to reopen the facility. And it also became very clear to me at least that the obstacle to virtually all of these options is our sheriff. It's McFadden. As I mentioned, the state has offered to lease Jail North and run it themselves. They've offered to buy the facility and run it themselves. They've offered to continue the contract that was not renewed back in twenty twenty two. There is. Almost fifty million dollars the state has set aside for a new juvenile jail facility. But the state is like, why we would we build a new facility in meckliberg County. With the land prices being what they are, we're going to build a facility when you've got one sitting right there that's empty, why don't we just use that one? Because again, juvenile detention is a state responsibility, but there's a cost sharing mechanism in the state law. So if the county is running it, the county would get money from the state to house the inmates. But if the county is sending those juvenile inmates out of county to a state facility, then the county has to pay the state for half of the cost. There was another option that the county could run it, not the sheriff, the county. Now I had not heard this option ever pitched before, but that to me seems like the way that the county commissioners can do something. This is on the county commissioners now completely controlled by Democrats, so I don't know if they will do it. But the community has been demanding the reopening of Jail North, and if the impediment to doing so is the sheriff, then County commissioners, you have the ability to do this. Now you are going to have to reprioritize some of your funding. As I've gone over in the past, they spend more on parks and rec than they do on the justice system. So you might need to reprioritize your spending to promote public safety, to raise the funding level for public safety. And that's going to take. Away from some of your other priorities that you prefer, that you that make you feel warm and fuzzy. You're going to have to maybe dial back some of that spending and do the thing that actually is the primary function of any government, which is to provide security and a justice system. So last clip here from last night, McFadden, who has he has he had pitched another idea which was a ridiculous idea, which was to close down the state facility in Gibers County where we are currently sending our juveniles while they await trial and hearings. So he says, close down Cabara's County and give me all of your employees, which by the way, would still be understaffed at Jail North. He says, just transfer them over to my employment. And the state last night told him the state eyelassiters like, yeah, we can't do that. They would have to reapply for those positions. It's not a simple transfer. You can't legally do that. But McFadden kept harping on this idea that we can't possibly hire ninety six staff. It's just too much of a burden. We can't possibly find enough people. And I get it. This pressure exists in law enforcement offices all over the place. Thank you the defund the police crowd aka Democrats, thank you for that. Right when you villainize an entire profession, then shockingly, people don't want to go into that profession. So this is you know, your own fault, and we are all now living under the with the circumstances that you guys created. I get that, but the state dismissed this idea. Can't do that. Gary can't just transfer state employees over to county sheriff's office employees. We can't do that. They would have to reapply, and there are different standards that the state uses versus the county. So there's that too. Although McFadden does have a bit of a history of letting people slide on some of the requirements to get jobs. That was in the petition that was filed for his removal. So then McFadden proposed yet another ridiculous idea here it is. I would love to say that My idea is Okay, if you've got forty two million, and this what I'm saying we put up there on the table. If you willn't spend forty two million, can we renovate that building. To fight that That will be both of what they need if you have this kind of money. I'm gonna tell you this, and God forgive me for said. It's politics here, No matter what to think, it's politics. They play nice in your face, but when we behind that doors, his politics. If I have a building and I'm willing to open it, why can't you fund it? If I have a building and willing. To open it, why can't you create a mechanism, which is an HR group of people to hire. Ninety six people. If you want to fund it, you can give me the money and I'll take the money and I'll create my I'll create an own HR unit just for the tension center, not my HR unit, not my HR or recruiting unit. You're gonna have to have people to recruit hire ninety six people. If they want to say, well, sure, if here's an X amount of money to open up an HR to fund another unit to hire particularly for that unit. Why can't. It's a lot of things that we can do, but who's willing to do it? Okay, So the forty two million is capital money for the construction of a new facility, but the state says, you already have a facility. So he's saying, okay, well, give me the money and I will build a new HR unit that will go out and try to hire people just for the juvenile detention facility. The problem is you're still hiring into the Mecklimberg County Sheriff's office, and people don't want to work there, even with the higher pay than other state run facilities. The state is paying the Cabaris County jailers starting at thirty seven K, and it's hard to hire at that price point. Mecklinberg County is starting salaries around sixty K, and they still can't compete with the state. All Right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why, Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app, and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place, so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground dot news slash Pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot ground dot news slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Okay, yes, there is say risk in talking about all of this stuff revolving around Sheriff Gary not my fault McFadden, which Becky highlights in an email to Pete at the Petekalnarshow dot Com that not my fault McFadden could scream that his feelings were hurt and the county could pay him off, just like the city did for former police chief Johnny Jennings. Like that that is a risk. Yes, from the WBT text line. Let me see if I can get through a bunch of these texts here from Lloyd. Maybe in the Mecklelberg County Sheriff's Office should use some of the money they're planning to remodel the Sheriff's office downtown. With that money would be better suited to bring back the juvenile detention center and maybe go to vy Lyles to see if she can find some extra money with the city council to throw at him under the table. Maybe this is from Bubba who says maybe if Gary wasn't such a tyrant, he wouldn't have a staffing issue. Just a thought. Yeah, David says staffing is an issue at the state and local government levels. I've been in law enforcement for over thirty three years. It's hard to find people who meet the standards for the amount of money the agency pays. Yes, no doubt about that, No doubt. However, when I do a comparison between Cabaris County and Mecliburg County and McFadden is at forty percent vacancy or higher, and Cabarris County's state facility for juveniles is at a similar staffing vacancy problem. Yet the state is only. Starting their salaries at thirty seven thousand and McFadden is starting his at somewhere around sixty k. Then that's obviously indicative of because the market would say that you would get more people coming to Meclimber County to take these jobs. But the market is also saying that even when you have that inflated salary, that there's another reason people don't want to take this job. Mike says, when Jail North was closed, there had to have been substantial savings, right, personnel, utilities, insurance. Was the sheriff's budget decreased? Where do the savings go? Well, it was closed. They cited the cost savings as a time when they were trying to balance the budget and the county commissioners wanted to use the savings for other priorities. Alfred plea, Oh, this is from QT now hiring. What does that say? Fifteen ninety an hour? So not sixty five. Thousand, seven oh four numbers, says qts that have armed guards get paid more than thirty dollars an hour. Oh so maybe McFadden's talking about I could just go to work for QT as an armed guard. Mike says, I'm not against Sheriff McFadden being removed, but if he's removed, who would succeed him? I'm assuming his chief deputy and the last two have not enjoyed working for him. So h seven oh four number says great news on the sheriff. However, I doubt his constituents will care. Besides, why do we need more jail capacity? I thought the county was using mental health interventions to prevent crime. Well, and look, I've made this point before. You know, we constantly hear about the population growth in Charlotte, in Mecklenburg in North Carolina, right the local boosters talk about how we've got, you know, two hundred people a day moving into Mecklinberg County or whatever it is, and yet we have not expanded jail capacity in like twenty years. Make that make sense? It doesn't. Obviously, if you're not expanding the capacity of the jail while you have a population boom, then you're not going to have enough room for all of the people that go to the jail. It's it's a simple proportional argument. You know, it's logic. You got to have more beds. Rodney says, according to the Internet, starting salary for a detention officer in Mecklelberg County is fifty six to fifty eight thousand annually. Okay, maybe there are dances. Maybe there are no qts in Cabaris County. That's so they can't take the jobs there. Laurie says, I cannot believe he still has a job. Adam says the reason McFadden must maintain control of the juvenile center is because if he does not control it, ninety four of his current jail staff will leave to go to work there. That's well, that's a problem for him, then, wouldn't it be. Yeah, if you've got people that are qualified that are working right now at Jail Central and the county were to open up, reopen Jail North and open it as a county facility, then you would have a bunch of people transferring out of Jail Central going to work at Jail North because they don't want to work for m anymore. Nine eight zero number says, I live in a neighboring county. One of those chief deputies quit McFadden and came here to work as a low level patrol deputy. It was not for the money. Assistant manager at QT sixty five thousand a year and probably more hours. That's from a seven oh four number. Another number says, why does the sheriff have the authority to make real estate decisions? I would think that's the county manager and council's decision. Oh, that's from Diane. I get all of the issues with not my fault McFadden, but how is he any different than other Marxist leftist public office holders in this country other than the method used to sell the con Or scam. He's dropping a few not my faults in there. I thought he was about to say it. So again. The state offered to buy it, he said, no, The problem is McFadden. State offered to lease Jail North. He said, no. Problem is McFadden can reopen it. But McFadden can't hire the staff. He says, can't onboard that many people. Again, people don't want to work for him. That's his fault. McFadden says, give me the money and I'll open up a special HR unit to hire people. Away, But again people don't want to work for him, so that won't be successful either. So again he's the problem. And his idea to transfer everybody from Cabaris to Jail North that's not legal, and also people don't want to work for him, so again his fault. So we are not getting Jail North reopened with McFadden as the sheriff, that is clear. He keeps saying it's politics, and I guess in some sense he's right, it's about his politics. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. 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