By Nancy Bowman
Dayton Daily News
TROY, Ohio — Sheriff Charles Cox said the 40-year-old Miami County Jail needs to be renovated or closed.
Maintenance issues at the jail, which is on three floors of the county Safety Building in downtown Troy, are a daily occurrence, Cox said last week.
He met Feb. 29 with the county commission to discuss his concerns, which also were outlined in a memo. He talked further about his concerns in an interview.
A large part of the jail plumbing needs replacing, shower stalls have to be redone and some doors do not lock properly, Cox said. The two jail elevators are included in a replacement project being done this year.
He said he’d have a better feel for options when a state jail inspector visits in coming weeks.
In the memo, Cox said his initial recommendation would be to close the aging jail and move inmates to the county Incarceration Facility, which was closed in 2009 as part of budget cuts.
“The jail has done us good, but it is time. Something has to be done,” he said.
Cox does not have cost estimates for either renovating the downtown jail or preparing the Incarceration Facility for use. He said he’d propose to keep the department’s administration office at the downtown location.
Cox said he’s looking for direction from the commission.
Commission President John “Bud” O’Brien said the board is reviewing the memo and needs to obtain more information before making a response.
“We have some folks looking into issues the sheriff brought up at the Incarceration Facility,” O’Brien said. “We will be looking at their official reports of what needs to be done.”
The inmate count at the downtown jail, which opened in the early 1970s, is limited to 111 by a consent decree with the federal court. The incarceration facility, which was built in the late 1990s to hold around 240 inmates, is located on County Road 25A between Troy and Piqua.
Cox said moving jail operations to the Incarceration Facility also would provide more jail space for use by local judges in offender sentencings.
The Incarceration Facility, which is divided into pods to house 60 inmates each, would need work before it could reopen. Changes would be needed to house females and cells likely would be added for more violent offenders, Cox said.
At the downtown jail, about 75 percent of the plumbing needs replacing, said Cox, whose office was hit with leaks during a plumbing incident a few years ago.
In the memo, Cox said he didn’t know if renovating the jail would mean it would have to meet current standards, which require more space for each inmate, among other measures.
A state jail inspector subsequently said that changes such as those discussed would not affect the county’s grandfathered status when it comes to inmate limits.
Copyright 2012 Dayton Newspapers, Inc.