Woodbury County Supervisors have approved moving forward with a study to finance and built a new county jail facility.
The board voted to spend $75,000 with the Goldberg Group Architects on a design for a new jail complex at their meeting late Tuesday afternoon.
Sheriff Dave Drew says the current downtown jail is obsolete with several structural issues and not enough room for inmates:
OC………VERY MINIMUM SECURITY PEOPLE. (2x) :17
The original jail was constructed in 1985.
It’s HVAC systems are slowly failing and would cost six million dollars to upgrade.
Expansion or rebuilding at the current site would cost another 60 million dollars.
The sheriff says a new modern facility is the best solution, but there would be some cost to taxpayers.
He says holding more federal prisoners could help with some of that cost:
OC…….offset the cost. ;23
The Goldberg Group will look at creating a new 400 bed jail near the airport which would replace the existing downtown 234 bed facility.
Once that study is finished, the county board would decide on setting a bond issue vote to finance the new jail.
