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Public gathers for second jail meeting
A public meeting to discuss the possibility of a new jail in Bourbon County was held Thursday night at the Danny and Willa Ellis Family Fine Arts Center on the campus of Fort Scott Community College. Bourbon County Sheriff Bill Martin discussed with the audience his office's rationale for needing to build a new facility. Martin said the current facility adjacent to the courthouse, which houses 27 inmates, was built in 1977. A Powerpoint slideshow put together by the Sheriff's department gave the audience a glimpse of how outdated the facility looked from the inside.
Some of the current issues with the facility Martin discussed included: showers with rusting and flaking paint, plumbing that he said was leaking into water closets, heating which is not efficient, as well as the duct not functioning properly (costly to repair), surveillance cameras located within the pods not being properly placed, the need for more surveillance cameras, cracked windows within some of the pods, and the building is drafty along the north walls.
During the presentation, Artie Lucas of Goldberg Group Architects, PC, discussed two options for a new facility, which his firm designed.
Option A includes 110 beds, with 88 cells and 22 dorms. The total square footage of this design is 23,500. According to information made available by Lucas, the project fund total is roughly $6.5 million. The design for option B includes 90 beds, with 76 cells and 14 dorms. The total square footage is 21,000. The price tag for option B is roughly $5.8 million.
"I think the most important thing to know, and something that was voiced very outspokenly tonight is that, the people of the county feel that we need a new jail here in Bourbon County," Lucas told The Tribune. "The primary concern is, 'How big?' and 'How to pay for it?' The number one thing and what I tried to address tonight was, the real cost of the facility is not what it costs to build but what it costs to run it. And we're saying that you could build a new 90 or 110-bed facility and operate with the same number of staff that you currently have. So there wouldn't be an increase in staffing costs."
During the meeting, all three Bourbon County commissioners were present and asked a number of questions directed at Martin and Lucas.
"For us to make any kind of decision on this we need up-to-date numbers," Bourbon County Commission Chairman Allen Warren said to Lucas. "And I don't see up-to-date numbers."
Lucas mentioned to Warren the two should meet at some point to discuss the numbers.
"The numbers that (Warren) was talking about was, we had figured 12 percent for benefits and he was saying it was somewhere like 3 to 4 (percent for benefits), so in fact it's less than what we were projecting," Lucas told The Tribune. "The 12 percent is for your insurance and things of that nature. We take into that, what it is going to cost you for the necessary people to fill those slots 24-7, 365 days a year. Because you're going to have to allow for holidays, vacation time and sick leave. And that goes into that 12 percent."
Warren at one point also questioned the cost of construction relating to the project.
"The numbers that we're seeing now for the cost of construction is going to be about what it was in 2011 (when the price was first estimated for the project), so that's not going to change," Lucas said. "And it may be even a little (based) on some bidding we've done the last year or so."
Warren also had concerns relating to a possible location for a new jail facility.
"We hadn't figured anything in for cost of location for the facility. And that's because we didn't know if the county had a particular site already chosen that they owned, or if they were going to buy something. We (didn't) plug numbers in because we don't know where they're going to put it and we don't know that it's going to cost.
Citizen Lynne Oharah of Uniontown, who was present at the meeting, supports the idea of the county building a new jail facility. This is the third jail meeting in recent months Oharah said he has attended.
"My general feeling is we need a new jail," Oharah told The Tribune. "They (Martin and other speakers) made some comments about liability. Well, yeah, we have liability. Because you could have a high-powered lawyer come out of Kansas City and nail this county for lots of money."
Cherokee County Sheriff David Groves addressed the audience, discussing the costs associated with the housing of inmates in Cherokee County, who are from other counties.
Just to speak about the revenues generated from housing out-of-county inmates -- you all (Bourbon County) were nice enough to send us last year, $130,000," Groves told the audience. "And since 2007, that's been almost half a million, $469,000, if your tax money, was brought to Cherokee County to house your inmates."