The Bulloch County Board of Commissioners, during a brief meeting Tuesday morning, approved two actions for the future of the Bulloch County Jail and neighboring Bulloch County Correctional Institution. For now, the more costly item was a $460,950 expenditure for replacement of electronic control panels that remotely work locks throughout the jail.

But first, as part of a single motion and unanimous vote on four grouped “consent agenda” items, the commissioners unanimously approved a $33,000 contract with the architectural and engineering firm Goodwyn Mills Cawood, or GMC, for services in developing a master plan for the Bulloch County Law Enforcement and Public Works Complex. This follows County Manager Tom Couch’s suggestion for what he called “a preface to a pre-design study” based on a concept proposed by Sheriff Noel Brown and BCCI Warden Randy Tillman for a combined expansion of the jail and replacement of BCCI’s old building plus the addition of a transitional center for state inmates working while in the final months of their sentences.

As reported in a previous story posted April 13 at www.statesboroherald.com and included in the Friday, April 14 E-edition, Couch said actual construction of a suggested 750-bed combination facility would cost “tens of millions” of dollars and that he wouldn’t be surprised if it reached $50 million. But for now, $33,000 is the fee GMC will receive, including $25,000 for architecture and planning and $8,000 for civil engineering work in this preliminary stage.

GMC, which practices in several southeastern states and has an office in Savannah, also provides engineering services for the Statesboro-Bulloch County Airport. Statesboro and Bulloch officials recently began negotiations to have the firm also develop a new, long-range ground transportation master plan for the city and county.

Lock control panels

Second, on a separate motion and as the only item under “new business” on Tuesday’s 8:30 a.m. regular meeting agenda, the commissioners by a 5-0 vote approved a proposal for Stanley Convergent Security Solutions – now part of Securitas Technology after a merger – to install new programmable-logic control panels in the jail’s two main control rooms and its old booking station. The $460,950 price tag also includes relays, wiring, and a replacement intercom system.

The panels would control electromechanical locks throughout the 466-bed, currently 351-inmate jail. Existing panels, installed by a different company in the early 1990s during the original construction of the jail and early the 2000s when additional housing pods were added, are of an earlier type, Chief Deputy Bill Black of the Bulloch County Sheriff’s Office explained in a memo dated last Sept. 30.

“Over the years the equipment originally installed … has become problematic to maintain,” he wrote. “Essentially, these are push-button panels that are spread out in arrays within the control room, so that the … operator can see into the common areas of the dorms while operating the control panels. … Many of the switches and much of the wiring have required replacement or repair.”

That the existing equipment is “proprietary” to the original installer, which now charges a premium for repairs, was a point Black expressed both during the commissioners’ March 22-23 budgeting strategy retreat and again in Tuesday’s meeting.

“The company that has the existing panels, they’ll charge you $5,000 to replace a button,” he said.

The updated system the Stanley company is to provide will use touchscreen panels, and the company in its quote letter stated that all parts will be “off-the-shelf” instead of proprietary, so apparently someone else could repair it.

Keys for 100 cells

When the old controls fail, cells can be opened manually with keys, Black said. But he said more problems with the system had occurred since the budgeting retreat and related the need for the replacement system not just to security concerns for keeping inmates locked up but also to the need to safely unlock them in an emergency.

“It’s going to be mighty hard during a fire to get down there with keys and try to get a hundred cells open,” he told the commissioners.

The Stanley company also provided the similar equipment installed in the jail’s new but still unused intake and medical building. Substantially completed about two years ago as part of a $7.2 million SPLOST-funded package that also included the new Bulloch County Sheriff’s Office’ new training building, an evidence storage building and a new Public Works Department building, the booking and medical building is the only portion that has not be put into use.

This has been for lack of funding and hiring of new personnel, Sheriff Brown has said. County officials hope to open it with partial staffing later this year, and Black said the plan is to have the new controls operational in the older portions of the jail by then.

Commissioner Curt Deal made the motion to approve the control panels order, and Commissioner Toby Conner seconded.

All votes were unanimous at 5-0, since Commissioner Ray Mosley was in South Korea, as was County Manager Couch, taking part in a multi-county delegation visiting industrial sites there while Hyundai Motor Group is building its electric vehicle factory in Bryan County and some of its suppliers have begun construction of plants in Bulloch.

Tuesday’s meeting, including a very brief closed session for personnel issues at the end, lasted about 15 minutes.