ESCANABA — A proposal for the city of Escanaba to take over complete control of the site of the former Delta County Jail was labeled a bad idea by the outgoing members of the city council Thursday.

Currently, both the city and the county own portions of the old jail site, which has led both entities to be actively involved in any attempts to redevelop the property. However, the county has suggested giving the city its portion of the property to bring the site under a single owner.

“The attorney for the county has made an eloquent case speaking to me and to the manager and maybe others that they really want to give us this, but it’s important to remember he’s not our attorney. He’s the county’s attorney, and he’s thinking about the county’s best interest,” said Council Member Ralph Blasier, who is a licensed attorney himself. “I mean, I love the guy, he’s a really nice guy, but he’s not thinking about Escanaba. He’s thinking about Delta.”

Blasier had a number of reasons for why he thought accepting the property would be a poor choice for the city, including high demolition costs driving down the property’s value and the abandoned jail itself being an “attractive nuisance” — the type of structure that children and teens might be tempted to explore, increasing the risk of someone being hurt on the property that shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

However, the greatest concerned for Blasier was that accepting the property could immediately open the city up to liability for the site’s clean up.

“The minute we take title, we begin to share the county’s liability. Right now the county is liable to clean up that site. It has asbestos for sure, it probably has other things that I don’t know about, and right now the county is liable to clean that up. If we accept the grant, the deed, the gift of this land, then we begin to share that liability under a legal theory called ‘joint and several liability.’ In other words they could sue one of us, they could sue both of us and we’d both have to pay,” said Blasier.

Other outgoing council members agreed. Council Member Peggy O’Connell, who did not see reelection Tuesday, said she too felt the property would be a liability for the city. Mayor Marc Tall, who, like Blasier, failed to secure reelection, said the city should continue to work with the county on the property’s development.

“When a developer is identified and a plan described, if then, and they require a single … owner of the properties, both ours and the county’s, at that time, the council should decide whether they want to gift that that land, our land, for that purpose or the other way around. But not until then,” he said.

Tyler DuBord, who was not up for reelection Tuesday and will continue to serve on the council, thanked the exiting council members for their thoughts on the matter.

In other business, the council held two public hearings on ordinances, which were both approved. The first was to amend the city’s zoning map to rezone 77 parcels in the area along Ludington Street to E3 – Central Commercial District, which allows for more mixed use housing options in the downtown area. The second ordinance eliminated an energy optimization charge on residents’ utility bills, as it will no longer be required by the state.