The Oconto County Board on Thursday finalized the design of a law enforcement center and let it for bids on Friday.
The new facility will dramatically improve overall operations, safety and security, said Nancy Thelen, detention facilities specialist with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. Thelen has been performing inspections at the county jail since 2005, and her reports showed deficiencies that brought about the decision to build a new facility.
“We worked for several years on improvements, but we got to the point there’s no more Band-Aids,” she said.
Thelen was in the audience when the County Board reviewed and approved the design, then spoke to the Times Herald after the meeting.
“The (jail) staff do a great job, and this will just give them better tools to work with,” she said.
The LEC will be built north of the courthouse where homes and businesses have been demolished this spring. It will replace an outdated facility in the courthouse complex that needs major updates and has limited capacity. The facility will include sheriff’s offices, a 911 center and jail with capacity for 150 to 175 inmates.
The design was developed over the past year by the Madison design firm Potter Lawson, through consultation with Oconto County staff members, the Department of Corrections, the city of Oconto and the Oconto Fire Department.
“One of the biggest challenges was to not make it look like a jail,” said Kevin Anderson, of Potter Lawson.
He said the exterior and roof tiles of the LEC will complement the historic courthouse.
Landscaping for the perimeter of the LEC property showed trees and shrubs of varying heights to partially conceal the building from neighbors.
Diana Hogard, of Potter Lawson, showed images of the jail pod, in which glass fronts on the cells provide visibility for the jail staff.
“We really worked on making sure if you’re standing on that pod control platform you were able to see every cell front and into every cell,” she said.
Supervisors also viewed images of the jail’s two program areas where classes, church services and meetings will take place, and the 1,400-square-foot indoor exercise space. Although the Department of Corrections does not require an outdoor exercise space, it does require skylights in the jail pods.
Supervisor Gary Frank cast the only vote opposing the jail design (two supervisors were absent) because the educational program space is located too far from the jail entrance.
“It doesn’t consider the future of prisons very well,” he said after the meeting.
He said it’s important to provide inmates with skills and knowledge that can be useful after their release.
“We need to make it easy for people who want to help them with some type of education,” he said.
People who teach at the prison or lead other programs will be escorted by jail staff from the prison entrance on one end of the building to the program rooms on the other side of the building.
“What sense does that make?” Frank said.
The building is scheduled to be completed by December 2016, and the sheriff’s staff will spend four to six weeks “working out the kinks” regarding security and electronics before inmates are transferred, said Kurt Berner, a consultant with The Samuels Group.
He said the design team has developed a plan to construct the facility with the fewest number of interruptions in day-to-day operations of the sheriff’s department. During the construction, inmates will be housed at the jail in Oconto, not taken to outside facilities. Berner said this option was chosen for ease and security reasons.
“There wasn’t a huge cost differential,” he added.
The initial phase of construction will be the foundation, a rammed aggregate system of crushed and pulverized rock, instead of steel pilings, because of the poor soils located at the site. Berner said the aggregate system will add time to the schedule, because of the process needed to be sure the LEC can be placed on the site.
The two committees in charge of the project are set to approve construction bids on July 22, followed by the County Board approval on the following day and construction one day later, on July 24.
