Platte County releases jail expansion plan
PLATTE CITY, Mo. — Platte County residents are getting the first look at the jail expansion that officials have been working on for years, and that they say has been needed for even longer than that.
The conceptual plan released Monday shows a new, three-story building going into a parking lot at the corner of Vine Street and 3rd Street that would be the new piece of the expanded jail. It would boost the facility’s capacity from 180 beds to 471, covering the county’s projected needs until 2048.
Right now, Platte County Sheriff Mark Owen says capacity has peaked at 240 inmates in a space intended for 180 people, but past jail counts have hovered around 200.
That leads to tight quarters and improvised holding conditions that Sheriff Owen says can be dangerous for staff and inmates.
“We’re at a point where we’re constantly shaking cells down,” Owen said, who says inmates are ripping off part of the roughly 30-year-old facility to create weapons. “They’re now sharpening that into what is a shive or a knife. Or we had one that I showed today that was a bolt but they’ve ground it to the point that the point is so sharp that it would penetrate our bulletproof vests.”
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Owen says the long list of treatment courts and diversion programs run by Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd’s office has helped keep the jail population lower than it would have been otherwise, but Platte County’s growing population will keep stressing the jail’s capacity.
“At one point it had 240 [inmates] and the jail is made for, max, 180,” Owen said. “Technically, it should be 85 percent of that so that we can move people.”
The expansion would create more space for more and better medical and mental health care, proper inmate separation based on their charges, and renovating the existing space to bring it up to what would be built new.
Platte County will need to borrow $85 million to pay for it and plans to cover that bond with a 20-year, half-cent sales tax. It would add 50 cents to every $100 of goods bought in Platte County.
Voters will need to approve both the bond and sales tax in August, which is when Platte County Presiding Commissioner Scott Fricker expects the Commission will put it on the ballot.
“We’ll find out if the voters agree with us,” Fricker said. “We think it’s an important project but the voters will make the final decision.”
Modern building practices allows parts of the new building, like the cells, to be built off-site in an attempt to make the construction more efficient.
“It’s an updated, improved version of that jail,” Fricker said. “Technology has changed, layouts have changed, it’s modularized so we can just put in a cell instead of going in there and building it.”
Still, the county expects the new piece of the expansion to take two years to finish.
“I’m learning it’s going to be an interesting look out one of my windows but I will tolerate that,” said Platte City resident Joe Wolf. “The other tough aspect though is it’s going to be two years. Two years of construction off of my street.”
Wolf says he’s happy the county is keeping the jail and court system in Platte City because he hopes that will help the revitalization effort happening along Main Street in Platte City. He’s looking forward to the information Fricker says county officials will be getting to voters through community meetings and other methods.
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“Having more information, I think, will keep us from guessing all the options and trying to weigh it all out,” Wolf said.
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