l Tuesday at 10 a.m., Davis County commissioners are expected to vote in favor of placing a jail bond on the ballot. The meeting will be at the Davis County Courthouse, 28 E. State St., Farmington. County officials also will meet with the public and answer questions about the jail, its operations and plans for funding the expansion on:

l Oct. 5, Davis County Library North Branch, 562 S. 1000 East, Clearfield.

l Oct. 6, Davis County Library South Branch, 725 S. Main St., Bountiful.

l Oct. 7, Davis County Justice Complex auditorium , 800 W. State St., Farmington.

l All meetings start at 6:30 p.m.

Weekly tours of the jail are every Wednesday from 3 to 6 p.m. Contact Jan Pollard at the Davis County Sheriff's Office to schedule an appointment, 801-451-4120.

FARMINGTON - If he wasn't worried people would get the wrong idea, Kevin McLeod, chief deputy in the Davis County Sheriff's Office, might say business is slow at the county jail.

With an important bond election just weeks away, few residents have taken the sheriff up on his offer to tour the 376-bed facility, which officials say is overcrowded and in desperate need of expansion. County commissioners are expected to vote Tuesday to add a question to the November ballot asking residents for $24.8 million to pay for a bigger jail.

"We're optimistic that [the low turnout] means people have had their questions answered," McLeod says.

But that wasn't the case in 2002 when the all-Republican County Commission floated the idea of a 138 percent property tax increase, primarily to pay for a 400-bed addition. Hundreds of residents converged on the County Courthouse to protest. Officials eventually settled on a 24 percent increase to cover other needs, vowing to come up with a new game plan to pay for the jail.

Officials are considering rescheduling the tours to accommodate more people who are likely working during the 3 to 6 p.m. visiting hours.

McLeod reiterated that the population at the jail, which was built in 1991 to house 197 inmates, is double bunked and hovering closer to 400, including several federal prisoners.

If no one is interested in the jail tours, McLeod hopes more people will attend one or all three of the public meetings the county is holding in October.

Sheriff Bud Cox and the three commissioners - Dannie McConkie, Carol Page and Michael Cragun - are expected to attend, along with several jail officials.

"We wish more people would come down and take advantage of the tours because we are doing the best we can to let the public know what is going on down here and why we need this bond," McLeod says. "But maybe, two years later, people are getting the idea."

Or not.

One of those who did tour the jail right after the tax-hike fiasco was Layton critic Sherry Brophy, who brought a brick to the public hearing to illustrate her point that residents are crumbling under the weight of taxes.

"I saw a very well-run operation," she says. "But I don't know that they've done all they can, and I'm leaning toward not voting for it."

Brophy suggests using a night court to alleviate overcrowding on nights and weekends, when the problem is at its worst. And she continues to struggle with county officials' explanation that the federal government will come in and force them to build a new jail, or why it saves the county money to house federal prisoners.

"I saw a television news story about a sheriff in Arizona, who runs a jail out of a tent and keeps the prisoners dressed in pink underwear and nobody's forcing him to open a bigger jail," she says.

But a citizens committee, convened by the commissioners, says otherwise. The committee looked at jail issues - from overcrowding to privatization - over a 10-month period and recommended proceeding with the bond election.

"It's clearly overcrowded and the patterns of the inmate population are growing right alongside the growth of the county," says Bountiful resident Chad Vanderlinden, who served on the committee.

"When you've already got judges who are being very careful with the length of sentences, you can't make many more concessions without the entire justice system losing its effectiveness."

lorib@sltrib.com