“I set this email to all BCSO staff a few days ago. I am re-issuing it as a press release to let the media and therefore the public know the big ticket items for the upcoming year.
Regionals and Ash St: I am working with the legislature and DCAMM to get one-time money to retrofit the MODSkitchen and program area to become a new home for the regional detainee operation at Ash St. If we can move the regional detainee operation to the MODS, we can close Ash St. I expect this to take at least two years, maybe longer. Step 1. Do the study on the design for the retrofit. This study will tell us how much construction is going to cost. Step 2. Get the money for construction. Step 3. Do the construction. (NOTE TO MEDIA – the ‘MODS’ is an underutilized/almost vacant area in the Dartmouth complex)
GB back on line: Now that the Academy is done, and FA is finishing up, we are going to start work on putting GB back online. As many of you have probably hear me say, to put toilets in cells and locks on doors for the 11 housing units that don’t have them is about $20 million, which we don’t have. But we can move money around for a one-time expense and do GB over two fiscal years. The plan is to 1. do the toilets/locks, 2. put AC in GB (in fact, every housing unit), and 3. make the cells suicide resistant. We think this will take 12-15 months. (NOTE TO MEDIA – GB is the same housing unit that was taken over in April 2023 when I first started, and the same housing unit that inmate escaped from in the ‘Easter Riot’ in April 2001 under Sheriff Tom Hodgson.)…