By Mary Pickels
Tribune-Review
GREENSBURG, Pa. — Fayette County’s prison board on Friday took no action after reconvening a meeting recessed on Wednesday.
The 45-minute meeting included a review of numerous “concerns” involving the jail’s correction officers and emailed to the county commissioners, who sit on the board.
Commissioner Vince Zapotosky said he and the other commissioners, Angela Zimmerlink and Al Ambrosini, received emails asking them to address specific questions regarding correction officer safety.
Last month, Zapotosky and Zimmerlink voted to suspend work on a proposed $32 million jail until other options are explored.
Ambrosini remains committed to replacing the 125-year-old jail.
“I think it would behoove us to listen to those concerns,” Zapotosky said.
He said he was “in the dark” about a meeting he “walked in” on where a list of complaints and concerns apparently were being compiled.
Zapotosky questioned who attended what he called a “discussion,” which Warden Brian Miller acknowledged attending.
Miller said Ambrosini attended as well.
Zimmerlink said nine concerns were listed on the email.
“We have no security, nothing like that at the state level,” was the first concern listed.
“Warden, is there security in our county jail?” Zimmerlink asked Miller.
“Yes,” he said.
“We have issues where, naturally, it’s open bars. Inmates do tend to throw urine and feces at the guards,” Miller said.
“Are you confident that we have security at the county jail or should we be doing something immediately?” Zimmerlink asked.
“We need to sit down with the union president and go over all these questions and talk about what their concerns are,” Miller said.
“In all due respect, until such a time as these concerns are put forth before us in a fashion befitting a complaint, it’s very clear this is something that has been contrived for purposes other than meets the standards of what we’re really dealing with,” Zapotosky said.
Zimmerlink reviewed several of the issues — and asked Miller to respond — including:
• Inmates can break through walls in some areas. Miller said attempts are made, “but we are not to that point.”
• Assaults and contraband smuggling has increased in the last three years. “There is not an uphill increase in contraband that I see,” Miller said.
• Correction officers’ only personal protection is gloves. “C.O.s can’t carry weapons on them, and the reason being is if they were jumped, or an inmate overtook them, then the inmate would have the weapon. We do have weapons in the prison, but those weapons are all secured until such time it’s needed,” Miller said.
• When SCI-Fayette inmates assault guards, those inmates are taken to the Fayette County Prison. “That’s correct,” Miller said. “There have been issues with SCI-Fayette that we have since, I believe, corrected.” He said in one instance, five long-term segregation unit inmates were brought to the prison and he contacted the state to advise he did not have the staff for that many.
• Plumbing backs up daily and correction officers “walk through human waste” to do their rounds. Zimmerlink said she spoke with county and building grounds supervisors and was told no repair requests have been made. Miller said he was unaware of daily backups, but acknowledged a “lot of problems with our plumbing.”
UMWA District 2 representative Frank Rutherford said he and union members believe the issues raised have “been addressed with the county for years.”
Rutherford said there are two areas of the prison with wooden doors inmates could “bust through.”
Zimmerlink suggested Miller address those issues and report back to the prison board.
Rutherford said the same issues have been raised at prison board and commissioner meetings and during contract negotiations.
“It doesn’t change the day-by-day working environment for the C.O.s” he said.
Ambrosini said he believes the officers are working at increased risk.
“There are ways to fix that,” he said.
Ambrosini cited an inmate who escaped from the prison’s “inadequate” intake area by pushing an air-conditioning unit through a wall.
“We have no place to put high-risk imates,” he said.
He said on Monday he witnessed human waste on the prison floor “as a result of the pluggage of the sewer system.”
During public comment, William Jones asked about the policy determining inmates who may be suicidal.
The warden said a questionnaire score, or refusal to answer those questions, determines if a suicide watch is needed.
Jones said he was aware of an inmate who was placed on suicide watch after refusing to take “psychotropic drugs.”
Miller said inmates have the “right to refuse” certain medications.
Zimmerlink suggested a prison board meeting with the county’s human resources contractor, Felice Associates, and prison physicians.
After the meeting, Zimmerlink stated that she believed that disciplinary action regarding two employees should have been taken on Friday, but that there was not a majority supporting such action during executive session discussion.
She declined to specify who the employees were or what discipline was considered.