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SMITH COUNTY — With a theme of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Breaking Ground,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Smith County leaders met Tuesday to address the ever-growing region at the annual State of the County, according to our news partner KETK. Nearly 500 people gathered at Green Acres Baptist Church for Smith County\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 2024 state of the county, highlighting construction plans and new partnerships like at the county jail.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We continue to work with entities, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re working with the city of Tyler and then the other cities within the county so I think this unity that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re seeing now is going to be nothing but movement forward, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really going to be exciting,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Smith County Judge Neal Franklin said.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We made great strides we have two people from the Andrews Center in the jail now,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith said.<\/p>\n
Their new relationship with the Andrews Center, a behavioral healthcare system, and with the UT Health Science Center, will ensure inmates get the healthcare they need.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hear about some relationships that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve formed on the mental health end and on the jail end which is really exciting to me. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something that we deal with a lot is mental health within the jail,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Franklin.<\/p>\n
The Texas Commission on Jail Standards requires one detention officer per 48 inmates.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153With mental health inmates, we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do a 1:48, many times it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 1 to 1, 1 to 4, 1 to 5. So, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s great when you can get those moved from the jail and through the criminal justice system,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Smith said.<\/p>\n
These are efforts toward helping inmates, especially those who battle mental health issues.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We used to have a psychologist on the screen. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to have one in person now which is going to be much better than what we had in the past,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Smith said.<\/p>\n
The State of the County event included an update and virtual walkthrough of the new Smith County Courthouse. Demolition for the project should begin this fall. The courthouse will have updated security features and a new jury assembly room that can seat roughly 300 jurors, or be used for an additional courtroom if needed. Progress is still underway on the five-story parking garage in downtown Tyler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SMITH COUNTY — With a theme of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Breaking Ground,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Smith County leaders met Tuesday to address the ever-growing region at the annual State of the County, according to our news partner KETK. Nearly 500 people gathered at Green Acres Baptist Church for Smith County\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 2024 state of the county, highlighting construction plans and new partnerships … Continue reading Leaders talk new courthouse, jail improvements<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":1312774,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2024\/04\/smicocourthousenew-225x185.png","fifu_image_alt":"Leaders talk new courthouse, jail improvements","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1312772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-08 00:11:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2024\/04\/smicocourthousenew-225x185.png","fifu_image_alt":"Leaders talk new courthouse, jail improvements","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1312772"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1312936,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312772\/revisions\/1312936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1312774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1312772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1312772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1312772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}