So we hear the WDN has already decided we need a new jail | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    Will Roger is reported to have said: "All I know is what I read in the newspaper." Fortunately we have better sources of news and information these days.

    We understand that the Washington Daily News (WDN) has decided that Beaufort County needs a new jail. Here we go again.

    The evidence that the WDN uses to support its conclusion is a couple of visits to the jail by a reporter and the publisher. Walk around planning. Come to a conclusion, then hire a consultant and get a planning committee to design it. Then the Board of Commissioners decide how it's going to be paid for.

    The same approach gave us the $33 million school bond program, which ended up costing us over $40 million and left us with underutilized and overcrowded schools. And remember, that happened while the jail was pretty much like it is today.

    This fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants approach to planning had the same bunch, along with the Committee of 100, deciding who the hospital should be given to before bids were received, and then the WDN, Committee of 100 and several commissioners (Klemm, McRoy) and current candidates (Jerry Evans, Larry Britt) and people now supporting Arthur Williams, jumped on the UHS bandwagon with an orchestrated campaign to eliminate all of the competition from other bidders. Cost us at least a cool $50 million (or whatever the value of the hospital will be in 2042).

    Same cast of characters has given us an empty Quick Start building and another industrial park cleverly disguised as a cotton field.

    Now it's the jail.

    You see, the jail's a bad place. It is a bad place to live and a bad place to work. We need a nicer facility. That's what the newspaper tells Will Rogers.

    But, the WDN says, it is dangerous for our employees. Yet repeated requests for Worker's Comp claims filed by jail staff have gone unanswered. So we ask, is being a jailer more or less dangerous than being an electrical lineman or a volunteer fireman? A review of the latest jail inspection reports shows more management-type violations than facility-type violations with only one violation of state facilities standards.

    And that violation is yet another brilliant example of Beaufort County planning.

    Seems that to solve the worst problem the WDN has documented (a narrow corridor between cell blocks) the Sheriff's Department in 2009 installed some plastic "glass" on the bars. Turns out the "Lexguard" violates the building codes and it has since 2009. They spent $39,580 without checking to see if the polycarbonate "glass" was a fire threat. But then they did not get competitive bids for the nearly $40,000 they spent so we can't determine what kind of specifications they used. A call to the vendor who install the stuff to find out about the specs returned a "this number has been disconnected" recording. Now they're being ordered to take it out. But that's been the case for over a year and the Sheriff's Office management has ignored the warnings. But it is one of the main reasons we need a new jail.

    No one seems to be able to tell us (because jail management fails to return calls) why they did not use metal solve the problem in the first place.

    So do we have a facilities problem or do we have a management problem, or both?

    It should be noted that the New Jail Cheerleaders claim the jail is overcrowded. Yet only one inspection report (September, 2010) shows overcrowding. In fact, the most recent inspection report available from the state (March, 2011) shows the lowest census count with a 73% occupancy rate. Interestingly, the reports show the jail census at 62, 81, 82, and 102. A range of 40 inmates in a facility with a reported capacity of 85 may show more of a management issue as much as a facilities issue.
Craven County Jail Construction, Winter, 2009: Above. photo by Stan Deatherage
    But that is exactly what the County has hired an expert to tell them. He has just started to work and says it will be 90 to 120 days for him to produce a report. The report will provide data and documentation that the Planning Committee will review and hopefully base its recommendations to the County Commission on.

    Yet the Sheriff's Department has been touting the need for a new Law Enforcement Complex and the WDN and some commissioners have already decided what the solution to the problem is.

    We have chosen to await the data and see what the Committee comes up with. Our hunch is that the current jail is inadequate. But whether it needs to be replaced or renovated, perhaps with a satellite facility being built or contracting with neighboring counties to house some inmates and certainly where it should be built, we just think it is too early to decide those things.

    Watch for the jail thing to turn into a new office complex for the desk jockeys at the Sheriff's Department, probably along with a gym.

    But what do we know. We thought the hospital issue should have been addressed by first determining whether better management and oversight could produce a sustainable enterprise and then if not that we should have used the competitive bidding process to decide who should run it. Little did we know that Commissioners Klemm, McRoy, along with Wannabees Evans and Britt, the WDN and Committee of 100 already knew what the best solution was.

    But we would like to ask them a Forrest Gump question. That is: "What would the jail need be if non-violent inmates (who were not scheduled for court appearances for several weeks) were housed in a minimum security facility (such as one of the empty buildings in the Industrial Park) and maybe the petty drug users sent to a boot camp for rehab treatment and all the illegal aliens deported?" Just wondering.

    So why are we spending all this money on a study when all we needed to do was ask the WDN to do a walk-through?

    But first we've got to tear out that 40 grand of plexiglass. Hopefully they'll check the building codes before they put something else in its place.

    Bless us and save us.