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New jail ready for operation
McCOOK, Neb. -- The city streets and alley will open up again and traffic will flow freely in the 500 block of McCook's Norris Avenue at about the same time that men and women who have temporarily lost their freedom are locked behind bars in the new Red Willow County jail.
Will someone earn bragging rights as the first person behind the bars of the new jail when it "opens for business" on Monday, Sept. 15?
The new Red Willow County law enforcement center -- jail cells and sheriff's department offices -- opens for a ribbon cutting and tours by the public on Sunday, Sept. 14, from 2 p.m. until 5 p.m. It will accept its first prisoners the next day.
The "tale of the jail" started in 1983, when Red Willow County commissioners decided not to renovate, remodel, revamp and/or reinvent the county jail inside the sheriff's office (and home) to meet the Nebraska Department of Correction's fire codes and staffing requirements. The state closed -- or opened, depending on your point of view -- the jail's doors for the last time.
For the next 31 years, sheriff's officers would transport the county's prisoners to-and-from and back again to jails outside the county, or, (until a couple years ago when the City of McCook elected not to remain in the jail business), hold them for up to 96 hours in the city's holding cells. For 31 years, Red Willow County tax payers have rented bed space in jails outside the county.
Convinced that this isn't the best way to handle prisoners -- although it was a really good way to expose the county to the inherent liabilities of prisoner transport and injury to prisoners, officers and the public -- commissioners decided in 2011 and 2012 to build a jail, taking advantage of a state statute that allows certain bond-financed building projects without taking the question to a vote or a petition of the public.
In May 2012, county residents did vote to keep the 20-year 4 1/2-cent jail construction bond levy within the county's 50-cent state-mandated levy limit.
There wasn't much uproar about the actual need for a jail -- the number of Red Willow County prisoners keeps increasing with rising crime rates. There was, however, much to-do against its location on lots north of the courthouse:
1. Across the street south of a private home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), American architect and a leader of the Prairie School movement of building design;
2. Smack-dab in the center of McCook and within a block of the busy downtown shopping area;
3. Across the alley east of a church and across the street west of another; and
4. Half-a-block east of an elementary school.
Contrary to popular belief, there are no state statutes restricting a jail's proximity to a church or school.
But commissioners held their ground on the location -- already having purchased and demolished, or in the process of purchasing and demolishing, three two-story apartment houses, one three-stall garage and one former beauty shop on the three lots next door to the courthouse. And insisting that any other location, even others within McCook, would still involve transporting prisoners.
A former commissioner, Eldon Moore of Bartley, said in May 2012 that there was "no question" about the need for a jail or where to locate it. About the $5.4 million price tag in 2012, Moore said, "It was stupid on my part" not to have built a jail in the 1980s.
Of six options presented by architects Prochaska & Associates of Omaha, commissioners decided to build a new 24-bed jail and law enforcement facility without an enclosed corridor connecting it the courthouse because that plan would not require any (expensive) renovations to the courthouse. Prochaska's plan is designed so that a corridor can be added and the jail can be expanded to 36 beds.
In May 2012, commissioners hired a Lincoln construction company to build the jail, only to have that company decide it couldn't work within the county's maximum construction budget. In January 2013, commissioners hired Beckenhauer Construction of Norfolk, and construction of the new law enforcement facility started with a ground-breaking in the rain on April 22, 2013.
During the new jail's construction, sheriff's officers used the city's old 96-hour holding cells when it was appropriate for the prisoner's circumstances, rather than hauling prisoners 24/7.
Sheriff Gene Mahon selected a jail supervisor and hired and trained jailers to staff this facility, and then move to the new jail when it was completed. Jailers trained in the new building the first couple weeks of September.
The public is invited to the ribbon cutting and tours. State and local dignitaries are expected to speak briefly during the opening ceremony.
Michael J. Wicht of Prochaska's said of the new jail, "It is hard to believe that our first discussions with county commissioners Steve Downer, Earl McNutt, Vesta Dack and Leigh Hoyt regarding design for a new jail took place in July of 2009. The county's jail planning committee formed by the board was instrumental in the success of this project."
Wicht concluded, "Sheriff Gene Mahon will be retiring at the end of 2014 and although (the county) will miss him, he will be leaving behind a bit of his legacy with the jail project that he helped move forward."