Commissioners defer site selection decision for justice system campus

The site selection decision for Benton County’s Justice System Improvement Program has been delayed as Commissioners and program staff review public engagement findings and evaluate all available options.

Originally scheduled to take place at the October 19 Board of Commissioners Meeting, one of several site decisions is now scheduled to take place at a special Commission Meeting on Tuesday, November 30. A purchase and sale agreement must be made by December 1 for the south site and December 16 for the west site.

“Taking this additional time to thoroughly examine all of our options is beneficial to both the Justice System Improvement Program and our community,” said County Chair, Xan Augerot. “In the final weeks of our first round of public engagement this fall, we heard many of our community members ask us to slow down our decision-making process to provide time to evaluate all merits of our proposed sites as well as examine the possibility of an alternate site.”

The County currently has letters of intent to purchase two properties in west and south Corvallis for the creation of a justice system campus. Though the County has letters of intent for those properties, program staff continue to explore all opportunities for potential site locations.

In mid-September 2021, the County reinitiated discussions to purchase a property in North Corvallis next to Hewlett-Packard with a representative of McFadden Ranch, LLC. The County previously identified the north site as one of its top five preferred sites for a justice system campus in 2020. However, the County and landowner were not able to reach a favorable conclusion and discussions at the time halted. The site selection process and criteria included refining an initial list of over 40 possible sites down to the locations and concepts currently before the Board of Commissioners.