County Jail Expansion Gaining Steam

Voters may have a bond issue to decide in May that would provide for expansion of the jail and move the Sheriff's office to Warrenton.

The plan will be discussed in a work session Wednesday where it is expected that DLR, the company working on the design and cost estimates for the jail expansion will have the latest cost estimate for the
multi-phase project.

The first phase would start with some remodeling of the Warrenton facility which is no longer used as a an inmate Transition Center to turn the barracks portion into new work spaces for the Sheriff's staff and provide separate entrance to the Sheriff's department away from the current entrance which will continue to be used by parole and probation.

Once the Sheriff's administrative functions are moved out of the jail building work would begin on a new expansion that will take the first and second floors of the jail out to 7th street, adding 100 beds to the currently capped 64 bed facility.  The completed project will provide a larger kitchen area so that all meals will be cooked on site rather than contracted out, a larger laundry to handle the additional capacity, a better medical facility and more options for holding cells along with an improved sally port for prisoner intake and secure transport.

Cost estimates were not available at previous workshop discussion but it was anticipated that those numbers would be available by this Wednesday's meeting.  Early discussion indicated that this plan would be about one third less than building a completely new jail facility.  Commissioners have added the jail bond to the regular meeting agenda which follows the evening work session.  The work session starts at 5pm and the regular meeting at 6pm with both scheduled for at the Boyington building.