MINUTES OF THE INFORMAL MEETING OF THE JOHNSON COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS:
OCTOBER 2, 2000
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chairperson Stutsman called the Johnson County Board of Supervisors to order in the Johnson County Administration Building at 3:33 p.m. Members present were: Charles Duffy, Jonathan Jordahl, Mike Lehman, Sally Stutsman, and Carol Thompson.
WORK SESSION: PROPOSED LAW ENFORCEMENT CENTER
SHERIFF ROBERT CARPENTER: PRESENTATION OF DAILY INMATE COUNTS AND STATE REQUIREMENTS
Sheriff Bob Carpenter said the current jail opened in February 1981 with a capacity of 46 cells. He explained there were overcrowding problems as early as 1986 and Sheriff Hughes spoke to a Grand Jury about this. Carpenter said that in 1989 he inherited this problem when he became the Sheriff. In November 1989, the State issued Carpenter a 15-day notice that they needed to take care of the overcrowding. He said there were about 52 inmates a day at that time. A loophole in the law, allowed them to double bunk, taking their capacity to 92, instead of the original intake of 46. Sheriff Carpenter explained they have been looking at other options and in August 1999 a program of in-house arrests began, where inmates are given bracelets and allowed to serve their time at home rather than in the Jail. The in-house arrest program averages about 15-20 inmates a day. The current average daily population of the jail is 98.7 as of September 2000’s count. The low count was 78 on one occasion and the high was 123. In January 2000, the State notified the Board of Supervisors that there is an overcrowding problem and suggested they start looking seriously into the situation. Carpenter said they just had an inspection but have not received the report back yet.
Jail Overcrowding Study/Steering/Site Selection Committee Member David Maupin said 12 of 17 applicants were selected for the original Jail Overcrowding Study Committee and it was a good mix of people, male, female, young and old. Maupin said that everyone came onto the Committee with the idea of taking a fresh look at the Jail overcrowding problem to try to figure out what makes the most sense for the County. They looked at the history and future jail headcount, which is projected to be up to 255 inmates by 2013. He said the Committee thought this increase was unbelievable at first until they looked at different facts and figures and realized that people are put into jail for things that they weren’t put in for 20-25 years ago. This includes drunk driving, drugs, and child/spousal abuse. Maupin said that currently the Jail legally holds 55 people and in 13 or 14 years they will need a jail that will hold 255 people. The Committee found that if prisoners aren’t confined in Johnson County jail, they will have to go elsewhere at $65 a day, which amounts to $4 million a year in operating expenses by 2013. The Committee feels Johnson County will be better off to build a jail now and house its own prisoners, rather than transporting prisoners elsewhere.
Maupin said the 2nd task given to the Committee was to select a site for the Jail. He said there are 2 basic alternatives. The 1st is to put the Jail in the middle of town, which requires buying out people and/or condemning property and perhaps getting into a situation where later on the facility couldn’t be expanded. Maupin said the 2nd option is to build the facility outside of the downtown area where there will be space to expand. Maupin said the Committee did not want to make the same mistake again of choosing a site that they wouldn’t be able to expand later, which is why the Melrose site was selected. He said the Committee feels the need to build a bigger jail is a clear issue.
Neumann Monson PC Architects Project Architect Dwight Dobberstein said the County hired Bill Garnos of CSG consultants to study if a new jail is needed and if so, how large. Dobberstein said that Garnos had been a Jail Consultant for 6 years, working for the Department of Corrections in South Dakota prior to that. He said Garnos was well qualified to look at the situation, independently with no ties as to whether the project moved forward or not. Garnos’ report stated that the population in Johnson County has gone up, as well as dramatic increases in bookings and caseloads and so the jail count is up, with a continuing population increase prediction of about 12% a year. Dobberstein said that the increase stems from changes primarily in the laws and other environmental factors that have to be taken into consideration.
Dobberstein presented a graph from Garnos showing the average daily population of the Jail since 1993. The graph details the average population with lows and highs for each month, the total number of beds available and how the population well exceeds the beds available. Garnos also made projections for the population and how big a jail needs to be in the future to meet the population projections. Garnos projected that by the year 2019, there will be 185 inmates in the Jail, which actually reflects a conservative number. He said the ultimate projection for the number of beds is 255 because there needs to be space within the jail to classify and separate inmates. The Garnos report shows the present jail to be very crowded, with no room for expansion of classification areas, and support areas like exercise, laundry and kitchen facilities. Garnos reported that safety becomes a large issue in an overcrowded jail because there is limited viewing into cellblocks, which is a safety concern for both prisoners and staff. Garnos also recommended building a jail on a new site.
Dobberstein said that they were looking at different sites for the jail around the time that the Jail Steering Committee began. Dobberstein said they looked at a number of sites and the ultimate site is on Melrose Avenue, just on the western edge of Iowa City. They looked at a site on the South side of Melrose, as well as sites near the present jail. Dobberstein said the basis for the selection of Melrose is that the site criteria from the National Institute of Corrections lists location as key, size of the site for expansion and flexibility in the future, and land ownership, in which the County does own this site. He said that some other criteria includes the site being open and capable of satisfying correctional design criteria, the site already being zoned for public use, which it is, and accessible to County courts. Accessibility to arteries is also a key issue because the Sheriff’s Department not only runs the jail, but they respond to all sorts of emergencies throughout the County. Dobberstein said this site is strategically located because there is access to Highway 218, I-380 and I-80. He said other site criteria lists access to existing water and sewer lines, access to medical facilities, capability for future expansion, minimal environmental impact, positive drainage, normal development costs and open to energy efficient solutions. Dobberstein said the County owns the entire area where the selected site is at, nearly 54 acres. Venture Architects Architect John Cain said that quite often in a project like this a lot of emphasis is placed on the jail portion. He said the other aspect of this project, that is often forgotten, is the fact that this is a law enforcement center, with not only a jail facility but a Sheriff’s Department as well. He said that issues of accessibility throughout the County become very important, not only for the Jail, but more importantly for the Sheriff’s Department and their ability to provide law enforcement services throughout the entire boundaries of Johnson County.
Cain said the first step in working with the County for this project involved sitting down with the Sheriff’s Department and writing a detailed building program for the facility. He said the outcome of that is a building that is roughly 123,000 gross square feet. The jail makes up about 56%, at nearly 69,000 gross square feet. This includes the 256-bed jail, divided into 3 different pods. Pod A is a 100 bed dormitory facility for minimum security inmates. Pod B is a 60-cell, 100-bed pod, for both medium and maximum security classification inmates and Pod C is a 33-cell, 56-bed special needs unit for high-security inmates and medical, psychologically dependent inmates. There is a booking area where all bookings will take place for inmates that are arrested, including 62 short-term seats for individuals who are not anticipated to be put into the jail, which makes the facility much more staff and operationally efficient. There are also a number of areas for inmate programs and activities, exercise areas, classrooms and visiting.
Cain said there is a work release program that will be a part of this project where a certain number of inmates put on work release status can go out to their job or to class each day and then come back to the jail. There is also facility support for the jail, including administration, food, laundry and staff areas. The Sheriff’s Department, which is about 41,000 square feet or 34% of the building, includes the Sheriff’s Administration area, the different departments for the Sheriff’s Department, including detectives, patrol, communications and records. There are staff training facilities and fleet operations with a garage on-site for 40 department vehicles with 10 spaces for vehicle evidence storage. The remainder of the project, about 13,000 square feet or 10%, includes the building lobby, and a courtroom to allow some cases to be heard at the Jail. There is also space for the Civil Defense Department, building maintenance and facility support, and mechanical spaces as well. The current jail has 46 cells and 92 beds, whereas the proposed jail will have 93 cells and 256 beds.
Cain went on to explain that the building design concept has Highway 218 to the northeast. There are gullies surrounding it on 3 sides and the Secondary Roads Department is to the West. The building is sited along a flat area and the public entrance will be along the southeast corner, visible and accessible from Melrose Avenue. There will be parking lots to the east and they are envisioning retaining a lot of the landscaping that exists on the eastside of the property to help screen the facility from both the Highway and the residential areas to the east. The jail is more towards the back of the site so it is less visible and there are trees nearby that section. All of the servicing will occur on the north end of the building and away from the public to the south. The proposed jail would be a 1-story building, with 2 of the housing pods in a 2-story design. Expansion on the Melrose site is possible for all 3 components of the program, with the Sheriff’s Department able to expand to the east, and the jail can be doubled to the west, if necessary, in the next 20-40 years. There is also still site land available if other County departments choose to move to the Melrose location at some point in the future.
Cain explained how the jail pods will look. He said the pods resemble a wagon wheel design. The officer is positioned in the center of the wagon wheel inside a secure enclosure that is surrounded by glass. Radiating from the glass enclosure, both in this dormitory pod as well as the cell pod, is a series of individual units housing different classifications of inmates. In a broad sense, the dormitory construction is going to be for minimum classification inmates and the cells are typically for medium and maximum classification. Pod A is a dormitory pod that includes bunk beds and tables. Cain said there is no reason to build cells for every single inmate in the County, which is the reason for the dorm style pod. The cell pod design has the same concept of the radial design where the officer is able to see directly into all areas. The concept behind this is to increase staff efficiency and to improve safety and security, not only for the inmates but also for the staff. The current jail is linear, with corridors, dayrooms and cells, making it impossible for officers to see everything going on. Cain said that in a podular design, it is much more possible for a single officer to be able to see everything that is going on in a 360-degree circle. There are windows looking into the cells, they are double bunked, there are toilets in these and showers off to the side. Cain said the Oneida County Law Enforcement Center in Rhinelander Wisconsin is an example of what a modern law enforcement facility can look like. He said there are no bars, no razor wire, nothing illustrating or suggesting that it is a correctional facility and in many cases this could be seen as an office building or even a school. Cain said buildings like this can be modest, yet attractive and in no way take away from the surroundings of the community or particular neighborhood that they are located in.
Cain said the bottom line for the preliminary budget for the project is $20,282,000 which is for everything, including the construction of the project and soft costs. Site development is budgeted at $450,000, including grading, utility extensions that will be required, parking and driveways. The building construction budget for bricks and mortar is $16,086,000 and when broken down the jail is $11,240,000, the Sheriff’s Department is $4,052,000, and the other areas are $794,000, totaling the $16 million. The total construction budget is $16,536,000. Other related costs, or soft costs, are at $3,746,000. Topography and utility surveys are $3,000, soils, investigation and reports are $3,000. There is no cost for site acquisition since the County owns the property. Architectural engineering fees are $1,128, printing state review fees and various reimbursables are budgeted at $120,000, and soil material testing is $10,000. Moveable furniture and furnishings is $300,000, moving costs are $5,000. The 911 dispatch system is $600,000, televisiting is $150,000, telephones $100,000, and voice and data cabling is $30,000. Start up jail supplies are $100,000, fiber-optic connection to the Courthouse is not budgeted in this budget, telecommunication consultant fees are $20,000, bonding authority fees are $350,000 and then a construction contingency of 5% of $827,000.
Springsted Associates Assistant Vice President Tony Roetlin said the company he works for helps cities and counties in Iowa and other mid-western states work through financial decisions. He said he is going to talk about financial realities and one of those is that prisoners need to be put somewhere. He said the County will be facing transporting and housing elsewhere for a significant amount of inmates given the current and projected prison population. Roetlin said this will result in annual costs of $700,000-$1 million the 1st year and escalating thereafter. He said they probably would not be looking at shipping prisoners to a neighboring county because most of these have their own version of this problem, making the cost estimate of transporting conservative. Roetlin said that by the 10th year the estimate is accumulated at $15 million, which is also a conservative number. Those numbers translate into $16 per household cost per year for a household in Johnson County with a market value of $100,000. He said Countywide, regardless of where that household is, every $100,000 increment of residential value will pay $16 to transport prisoners. He said this number quickly raises to about $35 and this is an annual cost.
Roetlin said the Board of Supervisors hired him and his firm to look into the financing options and what types of borrowing and use of funds on hand can be utilized to finance a facility like this. He said there is no provision in the Iowa State Statutes that govern County finance that facilitates financing a project this large with cash on hand or with regular tax revenues. The 2 options that the Board of Supervisors explicitly and implicitly chose on August 24th, by a unanimous vote, were general obligation bonds and funds on hand in the Capital Projects Fund. A $19 million General Obligation bond issue was placed on the ballot for November 7th to finance the bulk of a project not to exceed $20.3 million. He said that $1.3 million difference, by not borrowing it, the Board of Supervisors save County taxpayers about $2 million over the total cost of the financing. He said this calculates out to about $40 for the $100,000 market value household. He said the impact of the $19 million borrowing would be $29 for the $100,000 market value household in the County. He said there are 2 points that he feels inspire confidence in the way that the Iowa State Statute works with regard to a project like this and in the way that the Board of Supervisors of Johnson County is utilizing these statutes via the decisions they have made. He said these are the cap on project spending and the potential uses for buying proceeds. The total cost of the project can’t exceed $20.3 million. This number is on the ballot as a ceiling for the project and any expenditure in excess of $20.3 million would need to be voted by a Countywide election. With regard to the use of bond proceeds, the federal taxpayer and the state statutes in Iowa restrict the use of these monies, the $19 million, to this project. Roetlin said that if this project comes in under budget, the monies cannot just go towards another fund like renovating the Courthouse or improving County roads, although the funds could be used to reduce the total cost of the borrowing by repaying bonds early and saving on interest costs.
Roetlin said there are 2 sources of revenue that don’t get talked about a lot and one is that what space is not utilized in the new facility could be rented out to other counties and jurisdictions that need bed space. He said a plan that utilizes that component is very fiscally responsible in terms of potentially repaying bonds early, saving interest costs for Johnson County taxpayers and utilizing a project in the best way possible from a financial perspective. He said the existing facility is another topic that doesn’t get talked a lot about. The existing facility could be used to alleviate space needs elsewhere in County government without even selling it, thus saving money on that particular space needs acquisition. He said another potential utilization is selling it.
Lehman asked if home detention inmates are included in the daily log and if Sheriff’s department staff have to monitor these inmates. Carpenter said that right now, unless there is a violation, they are not monitored by the Sheriff’s department but by a company out of Minneapolis. He said if there is a violation then the company doing the monitoring notifies the County and they go check on the individual. He said they are booked but not counted on the daily log. Lehman said people have said that alcohol charges are a large portion of the overcrowding. He said that in the log there are usually other charges in addition to the alcohol charges.
Lehman asked Carpenter to relate how under age persons are handled and how someone with just a public intoxication charge is handled. Carpenter said in August 600 were booked and in September 689 were booked. He said the daily population average for these 2 months is about the same, meaning arrestees may have been booked but released. With public intoxication cases if the Sheriff’s Department can find someone who can be responsible for that individual they can sign them out. He said that on September 30th about 25-30 were brought in on charges in addition to intoxication. He said something has to lead to that person being arrested and it isn’t unusual for them to also be booked on an assault charge. Lehman asked if under age people are usually given a citation. Carpenter said as long as they are not intoxicated. He said he has read in the papers that he isn’t liable for turning an intoxicated person away, but he feels he is.
Lehman said he hears that based on other counties, Johnson County is being told to get down to 30 inmates so that there are beds to work with. Carpenter said they have a capacity of 92 but the jail was built for 46. He said many times there are mattresses on the floor and it is dangerous to do cell checks when you have to step over prisoners, and it is dangerous to the prisoners, too. Carpenter said he is surprised that nobody is considering what the inmates are going through while in there. He said that if people are saying not every inmate in jail is guilty, then they should have some rights. He said they should have a bunk instead of being on the floor on a mattress, but nobody has come forward to complain about that. Carpenter said that state law requires the jail only keep someone sentenced up to a year and then they must be transported to a state institution, but the legislature is talking about changing that to 2 years. Carpenter said that when they had the inspection in January he asked what number he could have in the jail and they said 70, giving him about 24 bunks to work with. He said this means that with their average of 100, they need to take out 30 and some counties will only take sentenced prisoners.
Jim Tallman asked how far away Johnson County will have to transport prisoners if the bond issue doesn’t pass. Carpenter said Muscatine has a fairly new facility and a few weeks ago they had room for 8. He said that same day Eldora had room for 22, but it depends daily. Carpenter said some bordering counties are having the same problems as Johnson County. Carpenter explained that even Scott County ships to Illinois and Wisconsin. He said Polk County is taking their prisoners near Kansas City and they are shipping some of their prisoners out to house federal inmates because it is cheaper and they can make money on it.
Reverend Bob Welsh asked what the cost for the operation of the new jail would be. Maupin said that incarceration is a labor-intensive activity and the more prisoners there are, the more staff is needed and the more the costs are going to go up. He said that per prisoner the cost is going to be optimized with the system they are looking at now. Carpenter said that in reality you have to get up to a certain amount of inmates before it is going to level off. He said that in that last couple of years their population has increased but the number of officers has not increased with that. He said that if they had room for more officers he would want more but in the current facility there just isn’t any room.
Welsh asked if the County has sat down with the Iowa City Manager and the University President to discuss the present solution to the problems. Stutsman said no. Welsh asked if the County has sat down with the County Attorney and chief law enforcement officials and discussed program alternatives. Stutsman said that can’t be answered yes or no because they have talked some about alternatives. Welsh asked if judges bought into the Courtroom at the proposed location. Jordahl said it is his understanding that this is a proposed space that might be used at such time as the judges would, but meanwhile be available as a training space. Carpenter said he knows at this point in time the judges that hold initial appearances are in favor of video court. He said he doesn’t know other than that if there are any plans to change regular trials. Carpenter said that the new facility would have a small courtroom enabling them to hold video court instead of hauling people to the Courthouse each morning. He said that he hopes to have video court for initial appearances before the end of the year in the present facility. Carpenter said this is safer than hauling 20 or 30 people to the Courthouse, and it eliminates having to staff people to haul prisoners to the Courthouse. He said the judges they use are happy about that because they think it will be faster and easier.
Jordahl asked if there has been an increase in the percentage of alcohol arrests that Iowa City has brought to the Jail in the last couple of years, in response to federal grants. Carpenter said that every day the papers say there is a problem with binge drinking in Iowa City due to the University, but he doesn’t know that they are arresting more because of intoxication than before. He said he imagines there are more arrests because there are more officers on the streets under grants they have received. He said that if everybody is doing their job there is bound to be an increase in arrests. Carpenter said that an increase could be from domestic abuse arrests. He said it is not the simple intoxication cases that are filling the jail, rather it is the people with all types of assaults like robbery, extortion, indecent acts with a child, willful injury, assault with injury, false imprisonment, kidnapping, domestic, murder one and more.
Jordahl asked about releasing people without bond as an option. Carpenter said the problem with that is the County pays for that when they have to be picked up in another state. He said that on every ticket you get, you promise to appear and get off at that time by signing your name. He said there comes a point where you can’t just sign your name to get off without posting some money to go along with that. He said that if someone decides not to appear in court and takes off to California, to get that person back costs about $2,500. Carpenter said he does not set the bonds, the judges do.
Jordahl asked Carpenter about those who could appear directly before a judge instead of being arrested first and held overnight. Carpenter said they have people brought in on warrants and they need to be booked and the judges don’t find out right away. Jordahl said the idea was for the person to appear before the judge without being arrested. He asked if there is potential for further use of electronic monitoring. Carpenter said the judges are the ones who send out the recommendation orders and he doesn’t know of anyone that he has turned down for that. He thinks it is being utilized to the maximum. He said that right now you serve more time if you are on the bracelet than you would if you were in jail. He said their feeling on that is it’s pretty nice to get to serve your time at home, but that is something the judges set forth. Jordahl said that someone suggested building a County treatment center for alcohol arrests in some separate place other than in the jail. Carpenter said that if someone can figure out a way to get these people out of the jail then he is all for it. Stutsman said that spending money on treatment centers for substance abuse would be nice but instead the money is being put into jails.
Stutsman thanked everyone for attending the meeting this afternoon. She said there will be another meeting similar to this one, this evening at 7:00 p.m. at Montgomery Hall at the Johnson County Fairgrounds. She said there will also be 2 other similar meetings, on October 17th, at 3:30 at Montgomery Hall and at 7 p.m. at the North Liberty Recreation Center. She said the plan is to inform voters about this issue as much as they can and these meetings will present opportunities for voters to ask questions or gain additional information.
Adjourned at 5:00 p.m.
Attest: Tom Slockett, Auditor
By Casie Parkins, Recording Secretary