By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – The Clallam County jail in the Courthouse needs to be updated and expanded. That’s what Sheriff Bill Benedict reminded County Commissioners at their weekly meeting Monday, and the Commissioners committed to moving forward by promising the money needed to hire an architect to begin designing.
“Because we’ve got the money to do it now. It’s time to actually pull it out of capital, assign it and do it. Probably within the next six months. I mean, this is complicated stuff that has a lot of moving parts.”
Complicated because there is no room to expand the jail facility. There’s no room to build out into the parking lot, and Sheriff Benedict says they can’t add a second story because of the outdated earthquake standards the existing building was built upon.
The solution, he says, is the new Emergency Operations Center, scheduled to begin construction next Spring near the airport. When that is complete, he’s hoping to move his office complex out of the jail facility and into the new EOC to open up some space.
Benedict says there are plenty of jail cells, but the way inmates visit with family and appear in court are changing, and we need to keep up.
“It would just be a work space for the video visitation with inmates and work space for the courtroom video appearances. Because that is becoming the industry norm, we’re expecting a lot of that requirement. The video visitation with inmates is just a place where we can have the computer monitors and cameras where people can come in and visit with the inmates without actually going into the jail.”
Again, the new EOC will need to be completed before any major changes are made at the jail, but the Sheriff thinks we could be under way sometime late next year.
Photo: Sheriff Bill Benedict.