Committee opts to have five acres surveyed
There is more to building a jail than just obtaining the finances. This became obvious as several potential problems with Warren County’s jail expansion were addressed by the Jail Oversight Committee last week.
A decision on how much of the 19 acres owned by the Smith family to survey topped discussions. The land is owned by Doug Smith and his sisters Kaye Clement and Elaine Simmons.
Originally the county had planned to cover the entire property, but due to the overgrown condition of much of the land it turned out the cost to the county for such a survey would prove prohibitive.
One possible solution, offered by jail architect Jim Armstrong, was to do a complete survey only on the 5 acres that will actually be used for jail construction, and overlay existing USGS (U.S. Geological Survey) topographical maps on the rest of the land which would provide enough information for the appraisers to make a determination. This is the method the committee decided to use as it is the most cost-effective choice.
The layout of the jail itself was also an issue. Committee Chairman Bobby Cox had gone over jail drawings with Sheriff Jackie Matheny and some of his investigators and they expressed concerns about the location of the holding tanks, the area where prisoners are held for processing after an arrest is made. In the current layout, this area is some distance from the prisoner entrance.
Matheny’s staff asked that this area be moved into close proximity with the prisoner entrance to avoid having to maneuver combative individuals down a long corridor to the holding cells. Architect Jim Armstrong indicated the floor plan hadn’t been finalized and the move would be possible, even though it might involve the relocation of some other areas.
The next item the committee had to deal with was the issue of parking space around the jail during actual construction.
“As you come into the jail area where the cars are parked now, all of that area will be a part of the construction area,” said committee member Swanson Bennett. “There’s a little scarcity of area to develop for parking unless we do quite a bit of landfilling.”
Since parking will only be a problem while construction is going on, a couple of temporary solutions were suggested. One was to utilize one of the two helicopter pads for parking, and the other was to set aside some area at the armory for short-term jail parking whenever it is not in use by the Guard.
Jail security was also emphasized. The general consensus was to implement some sort of computer-based, coded identification card system, along with cameras and intercoms, which would allow law enforcement officials to more easily monitor who was actually entering and leaving the facility.