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FAIRMONT-- The Martin County Board of Commissioners considered a redesign proposal for the proposed Martin County Public Safety Center during its meeting on Tuesday.
On a work session held on June 20, the board reviewed a scaled down project proposal that the core committee had come up with. The project went from a cost of $43 million to $32 million and in that process the court system was removed from the plans. Because of that, the project is going from being called the Martin County Regional Public Safety and Justice Center, to the Martin County Public Safety Center.
At the work session, it was shared that the project changed in part because of the decrease in funding the county might be able to secure in legislative bonding. Originally $19.2 million was requested and after the county wasn't granted that amount, the board put in a new 2024 legislative bonding request in the amount of $12.75 million.
The way the court system now operates post-Covid is another reason the project scaled back. At the work session on June 20 County Attorney Taylor McGowan said that many of their hearings are done virtually and he didn't see that changing anytime soon. While there could be benefits to a new courtroom, McGowan acknowledged that a new law enforcement center was a top priority.
An increased project cost was also a main reason why the project was scaled back. Several years ago the whole project was expected to cost about $38 million but with time inflation has greatly driven up the cost.
On Tuesday the board heard from Jonathan Loose of Wold Architects and Engineers, who presented the revised plans for the proposed Martin County Public Safety Center.
"To move forward we're going to have to approve this redesign with Wold Architects," said Commissioner Kathy Smith, a member of the core committee.
With the absence of a court system, the project would lose court administration, court rooms, county attorney office, probation and victim services offices. It will include just include sheriff office, police department (Fairmont) and jail facilities.
Smith said that the cost of the redesign Wold did would be $86,000. However, she said the county still has some money left of the $2.1 million it received in state funds in 2019 for the purpose of planning and design of a new facility.
Loose summed up the updated project and provided the board with a rendering of the redesign.
"If we were to move forward with this proposal... we would likely try to get it out to bid this fall. It's a couple more months of redesign and we'd be able to bid it out in the fall and start in earnest in the spring," Loose said.
The board asked several questions about the numbers of beds in the redesigned facility. Loose said some of them are double bunked.
"The reality is this plan reflects two things. One is, you have some flexible capacity so that your licensed capacity is pretty appropriate and lines up with the higher amount of inmates the county has seen. Also one of the more important facts of the design is the classifications themselves," Loose said.
Commissioner Jaime Bleess said as he understood it, the classifications, rather than space issues, are the cause for transports.
"A lot of transports that we have been doing are because we don't have the space to hold all of those different classifications which are rules that are different than 1974," Bleess said.
Sheriff Jeff Markquart said that in 1974 when the 34-bed facility was built, there was probably only six people incarcerated but a 34 bed facility was built because it was known that something would change. He said with the new design there is more room to segregate.
"In theory, we wouldn't need to transport people to other counties as much due to classification issues with this new layout?" Bleess asked.
"Correct," Markquart said.
Chief Deputy Corey Klanderud said that they came up with 11 different classifications per sex for a total of 22 possibilities.
Bleess asked if the Department of Corrections have come up with more classifications in the past few years. Klanderud said society has changed greatly in the past few years. He said they can't put biological males in with females even if they identify as female and vice versa, which has increased the classification system over the years.
Board members asked several more questions about the design.
Commissioner Elliot Belgard said, "our decision here today isn't to design the building. Our decision's whether we're going to have Wold redesign the building and if we're going to pay $86,000 to have them do it."
Belgard made a motion to continue to work with Wold and have the company continue to work on redesigning the building. Commissioner Steve Flohrs, another member of the core committee, seconded the motion. The motion passed.
Smith said the core committee wanted to make sure that all of the commissioners were up to speed on the new project. She said it was important to the committee that all members of the board have the opportunity to provide their input.
Loose said that Tuesday's decision to move forward was not the board's last chance to have input on the design. He said if they plan to go out for bid in the fall, he will be back beforehand.