Jail survey approved
Right: The main interior hallway of the Shoshone County Jail in Wallace (Photo by Chanse Watson). Top left: The wrench on a string mentioned in the report that is available to employees to adjust a leaky pipe, located in one of the chases between cell blocks (Courtesy photo). Bottom left: The rusted out telecommunication box mentioned in the report, not to mention a cobweb of random wires going in and out of it (Courtesy photo).
WALLACE — The Band-Aid is ready to be ripped off.
The Shoshone Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) approved a survey of equipment and controls for the Shoshone County Sheriff's Office (SCSO) at a recent board meeting with Sheriff Mike Gunderson.
This is only the beginning of a series of upgrades that need to take place within the 50-year-old building.
“This is a subset of the deficiency report that we had made about three years ago,” said Commissioner Mike Fitzgerald.
In 2018, the jail was presented a report of a top-to-bottom inspection of the current jail building and the strengths and weaknesses. Rusted sewer pipes and electrical boxes, causing pipe leaks and dangerous conditions were reported by the Shoshone News-Press.
Most recently, the water tanks at SCSO imploded with damage costing $30,000.
“Obviously, we have had some major problems with the system. Most recently the water tank imploded,” explained Gunderson. “We know there are some major issues with the water, and the pressure in the pipes. We are just going to keep going down a bad road if we don’t look at what needs to be fixed.”
The survey will be conducted by Gary Roylance, service sales and account manager for Control Solutions Outwest. An email was sent by Roylance detailing the basic issues, and what specifically needs to be investigated and fixed.
In the email, Roylance reported a variety of issues with the heating and cooling system currently in place. Notable issues include the chiller struggling to keep up with the demand, dumping hundreds of gallons of city water down the sewer every day which is expensive and wasteful. Jail cells currently do not get any heating and cooling which could result in complaints and legal issues. The office spaces and lobby-area continue to have temperature fluctuations which cause staff to bring in heaters or covering registers to limit airflow.
The current controls that are used for the system are more than 20 years old.
“This system has a lot of complications. The control system is over 20 years old. They don’t even have computers that can run it. Our computers all run on Windows 10 and this system is too old to run on them,” explained Gunderson.
After completing the survey of equipment and controls, Roylance will be able to provide the county with a full written report with suggestions to improve the heating and cooling system in the building.
The survey of equipment and controls was made into motion, and approved by BOCC and will cost the county $4,000 (not including tax).
“This is a request to do a survey to tell us all the problems and the approach of the fixes. The fixes will come in phases. There will be priority items that need to be fixed, and there are items that will be pushed to the future. This is just the report. Not the fix itself,” explained Fitzgerald.
The Shoshone News-Press will continue to follow this ongoing story.