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From initial planning to financing to completion, the Kingfisher County Criminal Justice Center has been nearly four years in the making.

But Sheriff Dennis Banther said this week that the transition of personnel and equipment from the aging, structurally deficient and overcrowded jail on Main Street to the brand new 100-bed facility south of town may begin before year’s end.

“The last inspection by the state fire marshal’s office is scheduled for Wednesday and the state jail inspector’s office is coming out next Monday,” Banther said. “Those are the last two things we are waiting on.”

After failing a fire marshal inspection six months ago due primarily to code changes after the initial design was approved, Banther said he’s confident that the structure will pass both inspections.

The sheriff said an open house will be scheduled sometime during the several weeks he expects it will take to move equipment, files, supplies and other materials from the old jail, but before inmates are relocated there.

Long and Winding Road

Planning for the new jail began in earnest when Banther and county commissioners Jeff Moss (Dist. 1) and Ray Shimanek (Dist. 2), along with then-commissioner Keith Schroder (Dist. 3) toured other new jails in the state.

“When the concept came about, we toured Noble County and Cleveland County jails to find positive and negatives of each newer facility,” Banther said.

“That helped us decide what we were looking for, but also allowed us to see what expenses are unnecessary and what things had gone wrong.

“That’s when we started our game plan.”

That was in 2017, but the impetus to replace the nearly 85-year-old jailbegan building momentum years before that.

Banther said the building’s serious deterioration began before he was elected sheriff 16 years ago and has continued to accelerate since then.

“We’ve had to shut down toilets due to plumbing issues and parts that couldn’t be replaced because they were obsolete, we’ve replaced shower pans repeatedly but they’re still leaking, concrete has been falling off the walls for most of my tenure,” he said, ticking off only the beginning of a long laundry list.

The layout of the building with administrative offices below and inmate cells, showers and restrooms above means whatever is going wrong upstairs eventually trickles down to Banther and his staff.

And sometimes it pours down.

A toilet in the east cell block leaks waste water directly into the sheriff’s and Undersheriff Barry Reilly’s offices, for instance.

Banther said Tuesday that melting snow on the jail roof leaked al the way into the employee restroom.

“I wish I had a video on my phone,” he said. “It looked like a waterfall.”

Banter said if they weren’t this close to moving day, the next step would be taking out the ceiling over the book-in room and completely shutting down the entire west cell block.

“The fire marshal told us to replace the ceiling but we knew it would last maybe 30 days before it would crumble and the water would come through again,” he said.

“We’ve been holding off and hoping we could make it just a little bit longer.”

Before plans were initiated to build a new facility, the state jail inspector (a separate entity under the state health department which also inspects the jail annually) was on the verge of shuting the facility down.

“Since we’ve started this process, they’ve been working with us to help us be able to stay in our current building until the new building is completed,” Banther said.

Quick Then Slow

Once county commissioners made the commitment to construct a new jail, multiple wheels began turning to make it happen.

County commissioners met with engineers, design consultants, contractors and attorneys who drafted documents to create the Kingfisher County Criminal Justice Authority Trust, which became the funding vehicle, Banther said.

A volunteer board was assembled to manage the trust and work with Banther and the county to oversee project construction.

Work also began on site selection and after several proposed sites were rejected for various reasons, commissioners found and approved the purchase of the current site south of town.

“It’s a good site, near the hospital but far enough out that it doesn’t impact residential areas,” Banther said. “We considered building in our current location, but we were looking at having to buy out a lot of existing houses to have enough property and most likely exercising eminent domain to get it done.”

Arhitects In Partnership Inc. was hired to design the facility and Joe D. Hall and Associates was hired as the general contractor.

The project was financed through the repurposing and extension of an existing quarter-cent sales tax which had previously gone to county fire departments.

The renamed public safety tax was extended by voters for 10 years and reallocated with 90 % going to jail construction and 10 % to fire departments.

The projectbroke ground in July 2018 and was expected to be completed in late 2019.

“They were going like gangbusters,” Banther said of the early days of construction.

“Plumbing was the first thing and then concrete for the pads.”

Delays, Delays, Delays

The masons came to do the brick and concrete work in 2019 and sent in extra crews to make excellent time, Banther said.

Then a tornado hit the hotel in El Reno where they were staying.

“No one was hurt, but half the masons went back to Texas after that,” Banther said. “I get it, they were hit by a monster storm.”

That slowdown was followed by torrential rains, the same prolonged storms that also delayed the highway project south of Kingfisher.

“It got so bad at our site that the high-lift forklifts were gettingburied up to the axles,” Banther said. “We had to wait for it to dry out and then put large rock out there to get the equipment out and build pads for the workers to even be able to get to the site.”

Those delays set the completion date back to March of 2020.

But issues with plumbing, water access, pipe sizes and water pressure delayed the project further.

Then came the pandemic, which caused back orders in supplies and other delays

Inspection Issues

All the delays contributed to the failure of the facility’s first fire marshal inspection in July.

“We had the plans approved three years ago by the fire marshal, but the code changed a year later so we had to make some adjustments to be in compliance with that,” he said.

Other issues included areas where exhaust fans didn’t work properly for smoke evacuation in case of fire and sensors over a cook stove that had to be removed until the stove is actually moved in place.

The compliance issues have been resolved and a third party inspector was brought in to make sure the changes would pass a second fire marshal inspection.

The final state jail inspection is required to follow the fire marshal’s and both have now been scheduled.

Banther said some other problems that have to be fixed by contractors or subcontractors whose work does not meet specification requirements are minor enough that they can be addressed once the building is occupied.

One of issues is with a crack developing in the exterior brick facade, but Banther said it’s the concrete block wall inside the brick that provides the actual security for the facility.

“Those bricks can be replaced once we’re inside without the inmates even being aware that it’s happening,” he said.

The building will house not only the jail staff, which has already been training to operate the high tech system, but also the City-County Emergency Management Office, the 911 dispatch system and a secure courtroom where Associate District Judge Lance Schneiter will conduct court appearances involving jail inmates on a regularly scheduled docket.

Rachele Hirom has been hired as jail administrator and James McNew as day shift sergeant.

Both of them bring experience in handling modern jail infrastructure and technology at other facilities and have been involved in training the jail staff, which has swelled to 18 personnel, plus the administrator, Banther said.

That’s in addition to the sheriff’s 10 patrol deputies.

“We’ve been hiring people from larger facilities along with local people,” he said.

“Hopefully when we move out there we’ll have less of a learning curve.”

The added personnel costs are paid from the sheriff’s portion of a separate designated sales tax which was just renewed by county voters in November, he said.

The 911 dispatch involves six fulltime personnel and one parttime, he said.