Sheriff wanted to put jail bond to voters again. Ada commissioners have a different idea
The Ada County commissioners want to work on a plan to upgrade the county jail that Sheriff Matt Clifford had said would cause delays and security issues.
The commissioners accept Clifford’s contention that there is an immediate need to upgrade the jail, as the $49 million bond that failed in November would have done.
“Not getting the bond doesn’t eliminate the need,” Clifford said in an interview with the Idaho Statesman after the November election.
But the commissioners think the county could make limited improvements with money it already has or expects. Commissioners are looking into how to upgrade the jail’s kitchen and make the other additions before deciding whether to ask voters to pass another, possibly smaller, bond.
Sheriff previously did not support phased construction
In a Dec. 14 meeting, Clifford told commissioners that he wanted to try a second time to ask voters to approve a bond. Clifford said that trying to expand and remodel the jail in phases, without a bond, would cost more and would take longer than trying to pass a bond.
Working on the jail in phases would be “complicated” and lead to problems down the road, Clifford said in December.
“The dominoes don’t fall correctly, and (it) causes a lot of security issues and delays and money,” he said.
But the commissioners are now considering an upgraded kitchen, a new corridor between the kitchen and future jail dorms, and infrastructure improvements to the empty lot that would serve as the future expanded jail.
On Tuesday, Jan. 9, the commissioners met with the county Operations Department to discuss a three-phase plan to remodel the kitchen, the corridor and the lot.
Why the change from December? The commissioners said the need for kitchen improvements is immediate.
“The kitchen is high priority, and that’s the main reason,” said Commissioner Rod Beck in an interview with the Statesman after Tuesday’s meeting. “Will it be beneficial to get the kitchen going? Because that’s what the main concern is.”
The commissioners are still working on the phased approach and haven’t yet met with Clifford to hear his take on it.
In a text message to the Statesman, Patrick Orr, Ada County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson, declined to comment on the plan.
“We weren’t at that meeting and not exactly sure what was discussed,” Orr said. “As I understand it, they were just discussing possibilities.”
‘The kitchen is in dire straits’
Orr agreed that the kitchen is the jail’s most pressing need.
The kitchen staff prepares 4,000 meals daily, and workers are struggling with efficiency.
“We’ve identified clearly, without a shadow of a doubt, that the kitchen is in dire straits,” said Josh Brown, senior project manager with Ada County, at Tuesday’s meeting. “The kitchen is no different than it was the day it was built. As you know, the general population has increased, and we’re dealing with the same old stuff they had in the ‘70s. We’re taking on costs every year, through operations from the jail, maintaining the equipment and buying new equipment.”
The first phase, the infrastructure improvements to the empty lot, would cost an estimated $7.5 million, according to the Operations Department.
The second phase, the corridor that would connect the kitchen to the future jail pods, would cost $1.3 million.
The third phase, the kitchen remodeling, would cost an estimated $2.4 million. A temporary kitchen would be set up while the remodeling takes place.
The county would also have to add a temporary staging area, for construction activities, which would cost $600,000, and insurance would cost $1.5 million.
The total project would cost $13.4 million, a little more than one-fourth of the bond’s cost.
Infrastructure improvements could need to be redone
A major hesitancy with starting a phased approach is that some work done before the larger jail expansion may need to be redone when construction begins on the dorms.
That work would include adding tile to the bottom of the canal that runs through a property that the county recently bought nearby. The county also would pour concrete to connect the back of the jail to the new section, add a sewer, add a fiber-optic line, and look into drainage on the site to ensure water doesn’t collect there.
If a bond or other funding mechanism is eventually approved to pay for the dormitory, the heavy equipment necessary for construction could ruin the improvements like the concrete and canal tiling.
But the commissioners said the early work would still be worth it.
“Whether we face it all at once or not, there’s always going to be some loss where they have to redo work, but what I interpreted from them is (the loss is) not going to be so substantial that it would be wasteful of taxpayer money,” said Commissioner Ryan Davidson in an interview after the meeting.
The commissioners said the work would reduce the amount the county would need to ask for in a bond. The department told commissioners the three phases could take up to two years to complete.
They plan to discuss the plan with Clifford and his staff before they move ahead.
