What the new jail they are planning will mean for you | Eastern North Carolina Now

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

    The Beaufort County Jail Construction Committee met on October 3 at 4:00 PM in the commissioners meeting room on West Third Street. Members present were Al Klemm, Jerry Langley, Robert Belcher and Ed Henry. This committee is proceeding to build the new jail and sheriff's offices in front of the Chocowinity Industrial Park across the road from what is to be the new visitors' center on US 17 south of Chocowinity. Sounds like a real winner for those future employers moving to Beaufort County. They will feel right at home with all that questionable activity and decelerating traffic at the visitors center and the morale lifting presence of barbed wire fencing and a prison along with all those deputies driving at break neck speed to get to the do-nut shop. Show me a business that would like this situation.

    The size of the jail to be built was discussed at length. No one knew what size to build, so they decided to visit a jail of the size they may want to build. Not a single person spoke about how to justify the number of beds for a new jail. Go to the clothing store and pull any suit off the rack and take it home. They all fit---some one, don't they? The sizes discussed were 176 and 232 inmates. There would be a 350 bed core for future expansion. Why the 232 and the 176 beds were discussed is completely unclear. Nobody had a rational basis for any of the numbers. But other computations indicate 180 beds will take care of us for the next 30 years. These guys are going to build a size that feels good to them. We currently peak out on a temporary basis of about 105 inmates. Ninety six inmates is the regulatory limit for mezzanine pod type construction. A mezzanine plan puts two levels of cells serviced by a single mezzanine control unit. This provides for maximum efficiency in staffing.. We should be talking about multiples of 96 beds or 192 beds for maximum efficiency.

    Constructing a "core" for future expansion of up to 350 prisoners would take us into the next century and common sense would say it will be outdated long before then. Projecting this far out means we are building too big and wasting more money. Building this big of a core means this jail will be located in the most inconvenient place to serve all the citizens of Beaufort County for more than 100 years. Locating the sheriff's office south of Chocowinity means the court rooms will eventually follow and if that happens so will the Clerk's office and the local lawyers, causing a major change to the demographics of the entire county and the City of Washington. But mainly it hurts people in the northeastern section of the county.

    There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the motives of Robert Belcher, Ed Booth, Jerry Langley and Al Klemm other than vote swapping among themselves to satisfy their personal political goals. Klemm needs votes to remain the king of economic development and become chairman, Belcher wants the votes to get more money for the schools, Langley wants to become the godfather of county law enforcement and Ed Booth cannot afford to break the black block vote with his election coming up next year.

    Another set of cost estimates was presented by the architect. Remember, the architects are paid a percent of the project, so the more it costs the more they make. The 232 bed jail with new sheriff's offices can be built for $21,088,382.40 we were told. Court rooms will cost and additional $701,702.66, bringing the construction cost to $$21,790,085.06. Using straight line projections with a 4 percent interest rate and a 30 year loan, the increased cost will be $1,600,000 per year for the mortgage.

    After a lot of "what iffin" the increased cost of staff was put at $2,461,788.60 per year. The implication was this number could be reduced. However, if anything the number will increase. There is not enough staff to deliver prisoners to the court house in these estimates. The number of prisoners will increase for several reasons and we will require more staff to handle more prisoners. We presently work 21 people in the current jail. The architect proposed that the new jail would require a total of 53 people. My experience with bureaucracies like this is the maze becomes more and more inefficient. The number the architect is willing to use is 53 people to staff the new jail. That is probably a low number. Increased labor costs, higher than original projections have plagued those counties that have built new jails, caused taxes to increase and commissioners to not get re-elected. Expect actual costs to be higher than projections.

    This huge increase in costs shows how efficient our present jail is. It is small enough that you can only crowd so many employees into it. It is approved by the State of North Carolina. It meets state standards.

    Why spend all this money to build a palace for prisoners and increase our costs by $4,061,000 each year. That is an eight cent increase in taxes. I have been saying a ten percent increase but we are now at a 15 percent increase in your Beaufort County tax bill. Find your tax bill and increase it by 15% and that's how much you will have to pay each year for this new jail. At present we spend $2,007,000 to run our jail. Our jail costs will go to $6,068,000 per year. That is a triple in costs. How can any sane tax payer support this kind of drunken sailor spending?

    Now comes the truth as simply as I can put it. The jail we have has not been condemned by anyone or any governmental agency. There is no court order specifying what standards it does not meet. The current jail can stay as it is and operate as it is forever, but certainly it can get us past these hard economic times.

    We are permitted for 85 prisoners. We could keep our 20 surplus prisoners 20 miles away in the Pitt County Jail for $400,000 per year. Is not spending $400,000 a lot cheaper than spending $4,061,000. That is a 3.6 million dollar savings. I know that my family can use our part of that 3.6 million dollars in savings for a lot better purpose than paying for something we do not need to begin with. You may not own property, but you still pay property taxes. You pay through rent and you pay through higher costs of goods and service because the seller passes along those costs to you.

    Wake up taxpayers and even non tax payers! You are being shafted by another bunch of liberal tax & spend politicians. The damage is not just in increased taxes, these people are trying to make drastic and harmful changes in your way of life and if they get their way they will devastate downtown Washington.