Who's responsible for the jail mess? | Eastern North Carolina Now

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

    Like the Energizer Bunny, the Beaufort County Jail story just keeps going, and going.

    The latest episode came Monday night (7-1-13) at the County Commission meeting. The board heard a report on the jail.

    They were told that the inmates are still not back in the jail. It was explained that the reason for this is that the problems in the jail, specifically with the electrical system, were much worse than had been known about until the recent power outage.

    It gets rather technical, but the short version is that a high voltage clothes dryer had recently been installed. It blew the circuit and caused an emergency evacuation of the inmates. When the circuit to the dryer was disconnected the fact that the fail had no backup power source was discovered. Backup power is supposed to be provided to all jails under state standards. There was a backup system for the courthouse itself, but not just for the jail.

    Now we learn that when the generator for the courthouse was installed some months ago the jail generator was disconnected so when the power went out only in the jail, rather than to the entire courthouse, the jail had no backup power supply.

    To fix the problem, the board was told, will require at least two more weeks, and if Murphy's Law hits, even longer. It is costing about $3500 a day to house the prisoners in other facilities. The total cost of fixing the problem has yet to be determined.

    Commissioner Hood Richardson questioned why this problem had not been detected long ago. He contended that the Sheriff had failed to conduct the proper inspections and tests to determine that the backup system was not designed and operating properly.

    After the problem with the dryer was revealed, several Commissioner inspected the jail. In that walk-through they discovered a number of other maintenance problems that had not been corrected, including a hot water faucet that could not be turned off. An inmate reported that the shower controlled by the faucet had been running for weeks.

    The Beaufort Observer asked to see copies of maintenance work order requests that had come from the Sheriff's department. Low and behold none were to be found.

    Sheriff Alan Jordan tried to blame the maintenance problems in the jail on others. He contended that the County Commissioners had not approved all of his budget requests for capital projects. He has repeatedly proclaimed that the jail is "my responsibility...and I'm concerned about the safety of inmates and staff..." but he failed to explain why he had not seen to it that maintenance requests (which are a separate budget item) had not been submitted to the County Maintenance Department.

    Jordan got Chief Deputy Kit Campbell to write a letter complaining about the county maintenance operation and what he alleged was "failure to fund budget requests." He provided no documentation that routine maintenance requests, as opposed to capital improvement requests, had been made.

    Richardson responded to this by telling Observer "the Sheriff is responsible for the operation of the jail. He often tells us this. That responsibility includes inspecting and testing the systems used in that operation. If something is inoperable he should submit maintenance requests. If the maintenance is not done he should report this to the County Manager. There is no documentation that this was done. Just because he made big budget requests that were not funded does not relieve him of the responsibility for reporting maintenance needs. It should also be noted that the Sheriff tries to keep commissioners and the press (except those who will report what he wants reported) out of the jail, even when it is empty. What does that tell you?"

    Commentary

    We agree with Commissioner Richardson on this. The Sheriff is responsible for the facility. That is dictated by law. If there is something wrong he should report it and be able to document routine maintenance requests. To claim that he and his staff are not responsible for fixing electrical, plumbing, and other technical systems is silly. That is like a school principal saying he can't fix the fire alarm system in his/her school but then when a fire happens, claiming that a new fire alarm system should have been put in.

    Jordan should welcome inspections of the jail by anyone. This foolishness of trying to keep commissioners, the press and anyone willing to take the time to visit the jail from seeing what the conditions are is just that: foolishness. We would suggest the Sheriff offer to set up routine inspections by commissioners, the press and anyone willing to take their time to inspect the facility. Of course it would need to be managed, but the management should be to give access not to deny access.

    The same is true with the records of the Sheriff's Office. But that's an issue for another day.

    The simple fact, to which we are eye witness, is that the Sheriff operates a secret system. As Mr. Richardson infers, one has to wonder what the Sheriff is trying to hide.

    But we'll say it again: The real problem here is that the Board of Commissioners has not provided the proper oversight of the Sheriff's Department. Therein lies the real problem.