The when, and the if, have yet to be decided, but the discussion about where a new Beaufort County Detention Center would be built came to an abrupt end Thursday at the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners’ annual retreat.

A 4-3 vote carried the motion to construct a new jail at the Beaufort County Industrial Park located off of U.S. Highway 264, west of central Washington. Chairman Jerry Langley and commissioners Robert Belcher, Ed Booth and Al Klemm voted in favor of the motion. Commissioners Gary Brinn, Stan Deatherage and Hood Richardson voted against it.

The motion was made by Langley in the midst of a presentation by Todd Davis, director of criminal justice planning and development with Moseley Architects, the jail-planning firm tasked with delivering new county jail options to the commissioners. Davis has worked with an appointed jail-planning committee over the past year and had previously delivered four possible plans for a new facility — two plans proposed facilities built behind, and adjoining, the Beaufort County Courthouse in Washington; two proposed single-level facilities on a tract of land in a to-be-determined location.

Prior to Langley’s motion, Richardson disclosed that he would share his own plan: a single-story facility, with parking underneath, to be built behind the courthouse on additional county-purchased land.

Richardson walked out of the board’s retreat after the vote, saying the act was “underhanded” and “a disservice to the community.”