After yesterday's Cabarrus County Commissioners meeting where a possible compromise on the downtown jail housing unit was discussed and ultimately tabled, I thought it might be a good idea to list all the arguments they talked about for and against a possible compromise.
I'm not going to list again what the suggested compromise includes,you can find that in an earlier post of mine.
The redesign of the jail housing unit will delay the construction of it by at least a year. It takes 3 months for schematic drawings and models of the building to be made. It takes another 6 to 8 months (because of applications that need to be done, reviewed and approved) before the final plans can be drawn and the bidding process can start. The bidding process itself can take up to 3 months. So in all it takes between 12 and 14 months before construction on a redesigned jail housing unit can begin.
The whole legal process could delay construction even longer than a redesign.
The N.C. Court of Appeals is scheduled on September 11 to hear an appeal of the lawsuit Concord residents have filed against the city of Concord to halt jail construction. A final ruling is not expected until the end of the year. If the same Concord residents then appeal this ruling with the NC Supreme Court it could take years before we have a final legal result. This depends on if the ruling of the Court of Appeals is unanimous or not. A unanimous ruling is usually handled much faster by the NC Supreme Court. As you know, the folks who filed the lawsuit have agreed to drop it if the County Commission approves the compromise.
A smaller, redesigned building would be cheaper to construct for the simple fact that it's smaller, thus a smaller square footage.
On the other hand a smaller redesigned building might also cost more, because of extra personnel that would be needed to work in it.
According to the sheriff this has everything to do with the layout of the building. I didn't quite understand this argument, but it was said.
Commissioner Mynatt then suggested to leave the building at its planned height (the original compromise lowered the building from 6 floors to 4), but "chopping of the last 1/3" in the back of the building.
The original plan, years ago, was actually to erect two jail house units on the same property (next to the jail annex which is being built right now), because the Sheriff and County Commission wanted to have a plan that could last 50 years and not 20 years like it always had in the past.
None of the Commissioners want to build that second building anymore, so that's off the table. Commissioner Carruth even suggested to share ownership of the piece of land that will not be built on with the surrounding residents so they can be assured it will always remain open space.
Since that second building has been off the table for a while, the jail housing unit that will be built (compromise or original plans) will be at capacity the day it will open. So the County will immediately have to start looking for some land to build yet another jail on.
Commissioner Mynatt suggested to use the plans for the jail housing unit, that have been drawn and paid for, on that new piece of land and spend the money instead on a redesign of the downtown concord location.
The Sheriff's dept. will have to set up a special new inmates transportation unit, that does nothing all day but transport prisoners because there will be a remote jail location then. They will have to do this whether or not a redesign will be built or the original plans will be used, because of the reason I just explained in the previous paragraph.
It is unclear how the Commissioners will now solve this whole issue, since they tabled the compromise last night, without agreeing on what will happen next.
Grace Mynatt wanted to go talk with local residents and the architects again.
Bob Carruth didn't want to spend the $375,000 for new schematics because he said he wasnt going to vote for a redesign anyway, he wants the original plans to be used.
Joni Juba seems to side with Carruth, while Privette is siding with Mynatt.
This leaves Commissioner Jay White to decide.
I have no doubt this story will continue for a while...
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
A compromise on the downtown jail: arguments for and against
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11 comments:
Regarding a smaller building costing more to operate: I can share some insight into that.
The new thing in jail construction is to have a "gallery" system where many cells (usually 20-25) are all visible from a single control room. These areas are called "pods." Usually it takes only 1 person in this control room to handle the visual security part.
Cell moves and other tasks are handled by "floaters" who work from "pod" to "pod" doing the moves, cell checks, searches and head counts.
This new system is like the one used im Meck County.
The problem is, it takes a taller building to use the "pod" system. Chopping a few floors off of the thing would eliminate the pod system as a possiblility thus a linear jail would require 2-3 deputies per hall to run. This wouldn't include the "floaters" who would transfer inmates and search cells.
That's what they're talking about.
On a side note, I never understood why they wanted two seperate buildings anyway. I would support a remote site too, but you make a good point, it takes 2 deputies to transport inmates and 2 more at each "sallyport" (entrance) to run the transfer. So having one big building would save them 6 inmates per shift for at total of 24 deputies.
The original plan, years ago, was actually to erect two jail house units on the same property (next to the jail annex which is being built right now), because the Sheriff and County Commission wanted to have a plan that could last 50 years and not 20 years like it always had in the past.
Actually, the plan in 2005 (two years ago was to build the one housing unit and to reserve the space for a second building.
Also - a bit of trivia - which commissioner made the motion in 2004 (and voted for) the current location, size, and scope of the jail project?
Aaron, thanks for the insight, the whole issue makes more sense to me now.
Justin, the answer to your trivia would have to be Coy Privette?
What did I win?
It would make far more sense to me to keep the plans but build somewhere else. I'm sure they can find a suitable piece of property close enough that transporting prisoners won't take all day. Even if this means hiring more staff to handle transporting, it would keep the jail and prisoners away from town. The land they were going to build on should be sold and that money utilized toward the new jail and new location. How come no one ever mentioned using the State's property off Rt. 49 that used to house juvenile offenders? I would imagine the State would let that land go under market value.
it would keep the jail and prisoners away from town.
Away from your town at least
If the same Concord residents then appeal this ruling with the NC Supreme Court it could take years before we have a final legal result.
This isn't true. I'd wondered where you were getting that information from and someone told me last night that Privette made that suggestion.
If it went to the NC Supreme Court - the matter would be resolved early next year according to some of the legal folk I know.
If the same Concord residents then appeal this ruling with the NC Supreme Court it could take years before we have a final legal result.
This isn't true.
Yes it is true if the ruling by the court of appeals would not be unanimous. It the ruling would be unanimous, then you're right, the ruling of the supreme court on those rulings only takes a few months.
It was Privette who brought up that "it could take years", but it was the county attorney who said that was only true about appeals to non-unanimous rulings by the court of appeals. I hope you understand what I'm trying to say here.
It wouldn't take years; but I imagine we'll never find out. I can't imagine anyone who works in the judicial system rejecting this
Joan, you must live in another part of the state. The CURRENT jail is downtown and has been for over 200 years.Yet another swing and a miss: They still house juveniles at Jackson Training School And No, the state has to have minimum setbacks at Jackson Training School and the orinal buildings are designated historical.
Sure there is a jail downtown and nobody argued with adding 96 more beds. The contention is over the plans for a new building with over 450 beds. The County only has about 300 people in their prison system. So we are building all these extra jail beds when we really need extra schools now. The proposed jail is planned to fill with County prisoners by 2030 and will be functionally obsolete before then. What will the adaptive reuse be for such a downtown monstrosity???
If this had been planned right from the start our elected leaders would have foreen the opposition to something they are trying to cram down a historic neighborhood's throat and planned for it instead of blaming those poor people for derailing the process. Certain County offials should have shared the jail design with the other elected leaders involved in the compromise attempt if they really wanted a compromise.
The fact is, nobody except the Sheriff, the County manager's office and maybe 2 or 3 commissioners really know what is going on and they are not sharing that info - WHY NOT???
I understand that because they are building the jail downtown they have to add extra maximum security features. This is why it costs almost twice as much as other jails this size. Does Aaron or anybody else have insight about this?
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