County OKs jail study
By Steve Herring
Published in News on September 17, 2014 1:46 PM
Full Size
News-Argus/STEVE HERRING
The former Masons department store property on North William Street is still being considered as a possible site for Wayne County's new jail. The board is no longer considering a former prison.
Wayne County could have a nearly 220-bed minimum security satellite jail within two years as it works toward a larger judicial center that would house the Sheriff's Office as well.
It appears the Wayne County commissioners have abandoned the idea of converting a shuttered prison into a jail in favor of using county-owned property on North William Street. However, commissioners have not completely ruled out building on an as yet undecided new location.
No decision is expected on where the jail will be built until Moseley Architects of Charlotte conducts a needs assessment and feasibility study for the Sheriff's Office and jail, which would also include adult and juvenile probation.
Commissioners on Tuesday approved a $78,870 contract with Moseley for the study, which is expected to take four months.
Moseley also would design the new satellite jail and a new replacement jail or expansion of the existing jail, based on the study's recommendation. The design costs would be based on a percentage of the cost to build the facilities.
As part of the design services, the company would provide a staffing plan and provide training for jail personnel at a cost of $62,500
The study recommendation would require commission approval before any work could proceed.
"It would be the design of the large jail as well as the Sheriff's Office," Wayne County Manager George Wood said. "Remember, he has also thrown in probation offices because we have asked them to study whether or not, if we were to move the Sheriff's Office to a new location, could the existing (jail) offices be used for adult and/or juvenile probation.
The plan has always been to eventually have just one jail, Wood said.
"In the interest of public safety, and this is a public safety issue, I would like to put a motion on the floor to grant the contract and then bring back recommendation on how to proceed," said Commissioner John Bell, chairman of the board's Jail Committee.
Bell's motion was unanimously approved.
The vote demonstrates that the county is ready to move forward with the jail, Commissioner Joe Daughtery said.
Daughtery said he wanted to clear the air about the "elephant in the room" -- the old Wayne Correctional Center.
"I think we have come to the conclusion that we are not going to be able to use the old prison," he said. "I think, and correct me if I am wrong, I think we have all come to the conclusion that the best thing for us to do is to find a location and to have a master plan for a detention center -- a judicial center which would house the prison as well as the Sheriff's Office.
"But it would be a long-range plan that we not bite all of that off at one time. Our immediate need would be to build the first section and that would be this initial misdemeanor type of facility."
Projects would be added over a 10- to 20-year period, he said.
One reason to eliminate the old prison as a possibility is that the county does not have access to it and doesn't know when it will, he said. Also, Daughtery said, it is his understanding that the state wants a lease instead of transferring the property to the county.
He also questioned if there is enough room at the site to expand it to a judicial center.
Another concern is that the property is in the flood plain, Chairman Wayne Aycock added.
Daughtery also told commissioners to keep in mind that the old jail will still be used.
"However, time is of the essence because every day that goes by Wayne County is bleeding dollars to our neighboring counties," Daughtery said. "I think we are at a point now where we are approaching over a million dollars a year to pay for prisoners housed outside the county. That million dollars a year needs to stay here in Wayne County."
Fueling the concern is that the state is forcing more and more on counties, including housing DWI prisoners while at the same time the state is closing prisons, commissioners said. In the past, people serving a sentence for DWI were kept in a county jail for 90 days before being transferred to a state facility. The time will increase to 180 days starting in January, Wood said.
Wood said that concern figured into the decision to increase the initial plan for a 120-bed satellite jail into 218 beds instead.
The plan is to look at three wings of dormitory-style housing for misdemeanants and one wing of 13 double occupancy cells.
It will take at least two years to get the approximately 218-bed facility built and four years for a new jail, he said.
The county needs 110 to 120 jail beds "right now," Wood said. Building a 218-bed facility would allow room for growth while a new jail is built, he said.
"Once that (new jail) happens, the 218-bed unit would still be part of the jail for misdemeanants," Wood said.
The county also could rent out any extra beds to house inmates from other counties, just as Wayne County is now doing, he said.
Commissioners need to remember that jail populations are growing in other counties, which mans that eventually there will be no space to house Wayne County inmates elsewhere, Aycock said.
Part of the study is to look at jail population growth trends and before the study is finished it might make sense to add more cells, Wood said.