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| It's time to demolish the old jail. |
The cat is out of the bag now. The old jail must come down.
I made quite a lot of noise about the unacceptable conditions in the jail two weeks back. And the local media picked up the story from my blog and ran with it.
Now everybody is talking about it.
But where are the members of the BCC on this subject?
In listening to my counterparts on the board yesterday at the meetings on this topic--it is apparent that the sentiment of the majority is that we demolish the old jail and move forward with Administrator Wes Moreno's evolving plan to house inmates temporarily in other facilities which we are in the process of upgrading to accomodate this move.
Our new jail can hold 850 inmates. (Probably a hundred more than that with some minor adjustments) The Road Prison can hold 200. The county's work release facility on Fairfield Drive can hold another 400, and a facility we own and are in the process of taking back, a state work release facility on L street, can hold another 150.
That adds up to 1600-1700 capacity--and our average daily "census" of prisoners in Escambia County is 1500 or so.
With this as the scenario--we can move the existing inmates out of the unacceptable, third-world conditions of the old jail--and I'm not going to vote to spend another dime on anything at the old jail. We have $9 Million earmarked for repairs to the old jail--but in the condition that facility is in at the moment-$9 Million won't add up to a drop in the bucket of what is needed to bring that facility back to useability.
It has simply been allowed to deteriorate due to poor maintenance for decades.
So now it's time to move forward with the new plan, empty the old jail, and demo it.
Then we can determine the long-term fix which will more than likely include bonding the cost(s) of constructing a planned "expansion" wing on our new jail.
Only you could try to portray yourself as a hero for “finding the problem” and try to take credit for a fix when it was YOU AND your fellow commissioners that allowed this problem to occur. Your lack of oversight and diligence is the reason for this and other problems in our county.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous: You fail to grasp our roles in this situation. We are the legislative branch, not the executive. Since you obviously slept through civics class, let me explain to you what that means for your edification. It means we make rules, ordinances, and policy, approve a budget, contract for services, approve and enter into contracts, and provide broad oversight. The administrator we hire and his/her staff are the day to day managers of the county's assets, operations, and implementation of board policy. What this means is that we count on professional staff to do their jobs. In most instances I have been quite pleased with the work they do and have done. But once I received multiple complaints and anonymous tips about the mounting issues at the old jail--I went to look for myself. And I wrote about it, the press picked it up, and the rest is history and the staff has now been directed to bring us a plan to empty the jail and get the inmates and staff out of that substandard facility. The issues at the jail have percolated for decades--and in many respects we have been misled. That's on us. But now that I know about it, the urgency of the issue has been communicated to our administrator who will be implementing a corrective plan ASAP. No, we're not five micromanagers that direct day to day operations and do the work. That would be a disaster and it would also be in direct violation of Florida statutes which delineate our duties and responsibilities, and the county administrator's duties and responsibilities. All this said, I have stated publicly that now that I know about it, I will own the responsibility and push the issue until it is resolved. Hopefully you have a more accurate understanding of the way things work now that I have explained it to you. Now, get back to your keyboard and bang away the day........And while you are doing that, I am going to enjoy outdoor activities on this beautiful chamber of commerce weather day :)
ReplyDeleteIt should have been demolished when the new jail was built. And it should have been demolished when the newer jail was built.
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