SEATTLE -- Officials looking for a new jail site have identified several new proposed locations, and they’re not just in Seattle.

On Thursday morning, regional leaders announced six possible sites for a new jail -- two in Seattle, one in North Seattle, one in Shoreline and two on the Eastside.

"I guess I would be shocked if we had one community that stood there with open arms and said, 'Please site the jail here,'" said Catherine Cornwall for the City of Seattle.

That's the hurdle regional leaders face as they try and find a solution to a growing problem, more criminals than beds. Officials say they have to plan a new jail because the King County Jail will run out of room for misdemeanor inmates in five years. Then it will hold only felony offenders.

"It's not really a matter of whether or not jail beds are going to be built here. They're going to have to be built," said Diane Carlson for the City of Bellevue.

Right now, cities in King County lease beds from the existing King County Jail in downtown Seattle for people convicted of misdemeanors.

When the current contract runs out at the end of 2012, King County needs the room in both of its jails for its own felony convicts. That means building a new facility.

"We are not able to find the perfect site that is huge and isolated and still in King County," Cornwall said.

A regional panel has come up with six possible locations.

One is right next to the existing King County Jail downtown; another is at a rail yard in South Seattle close to the 1st Avenue Bridge.

In North Seattle an area in Interbay off West Armory Way will be considered.

A site in Shoreline and two on the Eastside are also on the list -- one in Bellevue near Auto Row and another just north of Redmond in unincorporated King County.

The decision won't come until the year 2010, leaving plenty of time for discussion and debate.

"It would not be whoever shouts the loudest and my guess is all will be shouting equally loudly," Cornwall said.

To post your thoughts about the proposed jail sites – go to the Jail Planning Web site

The North-East Cities group is made up of 23 cities. The jail planning group will hold a series of meetings starting Dec. 3 in Seattle. It hopes to have a new jail site picked in 2010.