Clear Creek County, Colorado — The Jail, the Sheriff, the Judges

The Detention Center

Clear Creek County Jail (Detentions Division; referred to in photo captions on the county's site as the 'Old Town Jail')

Operated byClear Creek County Sheriff's Office
Address405 Argentine Street, Georgetown, CO 80444
Cost of Care fee$25 per day charged to inmates when assessed by the courts, per Colorado Revised Statutes
What was tried for beds/year built/costChecked the Detentions, Bonds, Cost of Care, Inmate Money, Phone Calls, and Visitation pages — none publish a bed count, year built, or construction cost

Source: Clear Creek County Sheriff's Office — Detentions · checked 2026-08-24

Transparency rating

4/10Partial

✓The jail is named
✗Who is in custody — not published
✗Beds and daily population — not published
✓What it costs taxpayers
✗Deaths in custody — not published
✓PREA audits
✗Independent inspection — not published
✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
✓How to post bond
✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published

This rates disclosure, not conduct — what Clear Creek County publishes about a jail its taxpayers own, checked 2026-08-24. Nothing here says the jail is run well or badly. Every mark moves the moment the county posts the document.

The Building

You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.

Year builtNot found
Original costNot found
Paid for byNot found
BedsNot found

Since then

Not found

The Sheriff

Sheriff Ron Thornton

Runs the jailYes — Clear Creek County Sheriff's Office
How the office is filledCurrently filled by appointment: Ron Thornton was appointed by the Board of County Commissioners and sworn in November 19, 2025 to serve the remainder of the current term, which expires after the 2026 General Election (the office is normally elected)

Still needed

Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail

Source: Clear Creek County Sheriff's Office — Sheriff's Page · checked 2026-08-24

The Judges

Colorado judges are initially appointed through a judicial nominating commission and then face retention elections; they are state judicial officers, not county officials. The 5th Judicial District also covers Eagle, Lake, and Summit counties.

5th Judicial District — Chief Judge

Paul R. Dunkelman

5th Judicial District Court — District Court Judge

Catherine J. Cheroutes

Clear Creek County Court — County Court Judge/Magistrate

Cynthia J. Jones

Still needed

The county's bond schedule
Share of the jail population held pretrial
Median time from booking to first appearance

Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-24

The County Commissioners

They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.

What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →

Notes on the record

The county publishes a multi-year PREA Annual Report (2016-2021) summarizing the number and disposition of PREA complaints each year; the 2020 entry notes a 3-year PREA audit occurred and would be posted 'in its entirety' once received, but no separate full audit document was found.
The 2026 Budget document includes Detentions-division staffing lines (e.g. Certified Deputy Detentions, Lieutenant Detentions) and a capital project titled 'Detentions Facility Improvements' under the Sheriff's Office, but a distinct standalone corrections/detention operating-budget total was not clearly broken out in the pages reviewed.
The published $25/day 'Cost of Care' fee is a court-assessed incarceration fee, not a phone/video-visit/commissary rate, so 'fees' is marked no; phone and commissary services are handled by third-party vendors (Securus, Access Corrections) without published rates on the county's site.
Inmate Custody Status page offers only VINE victim-notification registration, not a public roster of current inmates.
Board of County Commissioners — Rebecca Lloyd, George Marlin, Jodie Hartman-Ball

These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Clear Creek County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).

How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?

Your VOTE is POWERFUL.

The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.

Names verified 2026-08-24 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered