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Costly Shutdown in Yadkin County: From 50 to 55 inmates to be moved from jail after most of it is closed by state because of inadequate plumbing
Journal Photo by Walt Unks
Most of the cells at the Yadkin County Jail will be empty for a while. County commissioners haven’t acted to resolve longtime plumbing problems at the jail.
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Published: August 28, 2009
Yadkin County could face as many as four to six months of paying other counties to house its inmates.
That's after the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services closed most of the jail yesterday, ordering the majority of the building shut down until plumbing problems can be fixed. County commissioners were told about the closing during a meeting Wednesday night.
The closing left Sheriff Michael Cain rushing to find room for 50 to 55 inmates in other counties.
"I'm calling, begging every sheriff I know," Cain said. "It is a mandated requirement that a county furnish accommodations for inmates.
"The jail is still open and functioning," he said, "but if they can't bond out, and we have to detain them, I have to find them another place to stay."
Forsyth, Davie and Watauga are among the counties that have taken in Yadkin inmates, Cain said.
That could cost Yadkin from $45 to $62.50 a day, he said, not including the cost of driving inmates back and forth for court appearances.
"Get out your calculator," he said. It amounts to from $3,000 to $3,500 a day.
There also are no assurances that those inmates will stay in one place.
"They can pick up the phone and say we've got 20 extra arrestees in here and you've got to come and get them," Cain said of the other counties.
"We've going to have to go where the bed space is available. I'm going to put them as close as I can possibly can to Yadkin County."
Jails are inspected every six months, said Jim Jones, a spokesman with the state health and human-services department. The last inspection of Yadkin's jail, at 210 E. Hemlock St. in Yadkinville, was July 21.
The jail's plumbing issues have been a long-standing issue, going back for more than a year, according to the past three inspections.
The jail did not have "adequate commodes" or "adequate lavatories" according to a July 2008 inspection. Toilets leaked, and most cells and dayrooms didn't have hot and cold water. Toilets weren't a problem listed in the January 2009 inspection, but inmates still did not have adequate access to hot and cold water, the report says.
Both toilets and lavatories were cited in the most recent inspection.
Combination sinks and toilets were described as "antiquated, and the chief jailer explained that parts are difficult to obtain which makes repair time is lengthy," the report said.
John Harkins, the section chief for jail and detention, allowed Yadkin County to keep a small portion of the jail open. There's room for as many as seven inmates, but Cain only plans to keep about four there at any one time so that he has room for people who are arrested and accepted to post bond.
County commissioners discussed the jail's plumbing problems at a meeting Aug. 17 but did not take action. Two quotes were presented for plumbing repairs -- one for $75,127 and one for $84,958 -- but they didn't satisfy all five members of the board, who asked for more details.
"The only amount was a dollar amount that said we're going to do some plumbing repair. My concern was that we didn't know what we were voting for," Commissioner Brady Wooten said.
This now puts commissioners in a position where they have to solve the immediate problems of housing inmates and plumbing woes, in the shadow of a related and larger problem that has dogged county officials for years -- building a new jail.
The issue has divided community members and stirred contention, and led to a series of lawsuits and appeals over the proposed new jail's location on Hoots Road.
A lawsuit over the jail's zoning has been filed with the N.C. Court of Appeals, said Jim Graham, the county attorney.
However, building on a new jail could start now, said Chad Wagoner, the chairman of the commissioners.
"People are going to have to be put somewhere," Wagoner said. "For all intents and purposes, we have a shovel-ready project, ready to crank the bulldozer tomorrow were it not being tied up." He said that Harkins did the right thing by shutting the jail and forcing officials to act.
"How much money do you pour into a sinking ship when you know that it is going down anyway?"
Wagoner said he is asking board members to resolve the jail issue at their regularly scheduled meeting Sept. 9. Wooten said he wants to call an emergency meeting before then.
■ Laura Giovanelli can be reached at 727-7302 or at lgiovanelli@wsjournal.com.
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