Photo by: Leslie Cantu/Journal Scene

Dorchester County Councilman George Bailey makes a point as Councilmen David Chinnis and Jay Byars listen.

A new jail and five new EMS stations. Or a new library, five EMS stations and an emergency operations center. Or a jail, judicial services building and three EMS stations. Or a library, judicial services building, three EMS stations and emergency operations center.

Dorchester County Council spent a good part of Tuesday trying to determine how best to allocate funds for the building projects on its plate.

And that was before Councilman Jay Byars got up to propose an ambitious plan to relocate county services closer to the population hub in Oakbrook and build a new library and community center on county-owned land currently used as soccer fields by the YMCA.

Dorchester County currently has $20.8 million of outstanding debt from construction projects and land purchases.

Under the 8 percent cap, it could bond another $18 million.

Council members need to decide which, if any, additional projects they want to take on.

Most seemed to agree that, like it or not, they would have to build a new jail.

The current detention center in St. George is in “deplorable” condition, Councilman George Bailey said.

He fears a lawsuit, he said.

Councilman Bill Hearn quoted the county’s former administrator: “Gentlemen, if you continue putting off going to the dentist eventually you’ll need a root canal.”

“We are hitting root canal stage,” Hearn said. “The detention center is kind of screaming at us at this point.”

By building the new jail in Jedburg, the county would save between $350,000 and $500,000 annually that it currently spends to operate the jail annex in Summerville, Chairman Larry Hargett said.

He said that Sheriff L.C. Knight assured him about a year ago that he could operate a new, bigger jail for about the same cost as the current jail, because the new jail would have modernized security features.

A new jail is currently estimated at $17.6 million, including the cost of buying the land.

Auditor J.J. Messervy did some quick math for the council and estimated that issuing a bond for the jail would require at least 2 mills of taxes, or $8 per $100,000 of a home’s value.

While a jail is no one’s idea of a fun project, a library is and has been on the wish list for some time.

Administrator Jason Ward said a 2005 study recommended a metric of one square foot of library space per resident.

Dorchester County has almost 140,000 people but only 32,000 square feet of library space, he said.

Two ideas came up for building a new library.

One would be a partnership between Dorchester County, North Charleston and Dorchester School District 2 that would build a new library/police station/EMS station near Fort Dorchester High School.

The library would function as both the school library and a public library, and the school’s existing library would be turned into classroom space.

Hargett said he’s spoken with North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey, and Summey is interested in buying some property there that’s available.

North Charleston Councilman Ron Brinson and Superintendent Joe Pye came to the meeting to show their support for the idea.

A competing library idea came from Byars.

He proposed selling the human services building at 500 North Main St. to developers; moving the planning department, treasurer, auditor and GIS to a building on Trolley Road, perhaps one of the speculative shells that was built and repossessed by the bank; moving the health department and alcohol and drug commission to the Old Trolley Road library; and building a new library with meeting rooms and council chambers on the county-owned land used by the YMCA as athletic fields.

The school district could also build a school there and use the library, he said.

That land is on the Sawmill Branch Trail so would provide easy access to many residents, he said.

Byars pointed to Greenwood County, which built a 43,000 square foot library last year for $10 million.

Byars thought the four acres at 500 North Main St. could sell for $4 million. Hargett said he’s gotten calls from developers about that property as recently as this week, and one is paying for an appraisal of the property.

Councilman Richard Rosebrock, however, said he opposed selling the human services building, which once served as the town’s hospital.

“It is an icon,” he said.

Council members also discussed the possibility of new EMS stations in Ridgeville and Harleyville, relocating the stations on Dorchester Road and Old Trolley Road and building a sub-station for Ravenel.

EMS Director Doug Warren said his No. 1 priority is relocating the Old Trolley Road station, which is currently housed in the Summerville fire station.

Those facilities don’t meet accreditation standards, he said.

The Dorchester Road station is located at the farthest end of its coverage area, and Warren would like to move the station near Patriot Boulevard and Club Course Drive, closer to the middle of its coverage area.

Council members said they’d like to see numbers showing that moving the station would improve response times. The proposed location is two miles from the current location.

After the meeting, Warren said it’s difficult to quantify anticipated response times, but he expects that moving the station would help balance them out.

The current response time for that station is 9.36 minutes, he said. He hopes it would decrease to six or seven minutes.

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