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Show Commission slashes proposed jail price By BRUCE LEE Record Editor PAROWAN "We want a Constitutionally Con-stitutionally sound faciliity for the very, very bottom dollar." And with that comment by Commissioner Com-missioner Howard Knight in mind, the Iron County Commission sat down Monday with architects from Edwards and Daniels Associates and performed careful surgery on the initial plans and price of a new jail and law enforcement facility for the County. The result of the six-hour operation was a cutting of nearly $2 million from the price estimated about a month ago. At that time, the estimate was just over $6 million, but the commissioners cut that by a third, coming up with a total hoped to be just over $4 million. Actually, much of the cutting was done before the meeting by architects Bob Boyle and Ralph Edwards, acting upon previous suggestions of the commissioners, Iron County Sheriff Ira Schoppmann, Cedar City Police Chief Douglas Bolton and others involved with law enforcement in the County. Other commission business, page A8 The architects came to the commission com-mission meeting with what they felt was a tightly build facility, with costs cut close to the mimimum, just over $5 million; but the commissioners carefully cut a little space here and there to remove an additional $1 million. Smne of the largest cuts came in the court facilities. Both a circuit court and a justice of the peace court will need to be housed in the building. The architects' original proposal called for quite large courtrooms, but the commissioners quickly noted that those were too large, and took the architects ar-chitects on a tour of the courtrooms in the Iron County Courthouse to prove their point. Thus, the rooms were cut down dramatically, but the judges will still have more room to work in than they currently do. Costs to build the court facilities in the building were estimated at $70 per square foot, thus the cutting in size saved nearly $200,000 from the original costs. "We're just trying to cut costs as much as we can," said Commissioner James L. Clark when the work on the court part of the plan was completed. Another area where costs and space were trimmed was the actual jail. Costs to build a jail are estimated at about $115 per square foot,' so the commissioners com-missioners were cognizant of the need to make every bit of space count or to cut it out. In addition, the Commission hopes to be able to save some money over the estimated cost of $576,300 for land acquisition, by trading some land between the City the County and private land owners. In addition to trying to come up with a good price, the Commission also spent considerable time discussing how and when they would try to hold a bond election to raise the necessary funds. The County will bond for the entire amount needed, and will be reimbursed eventually by the City in rental fees paid for the space it uses in the facility, said Clark. However, no definite decisions were reached on the bond election because so many questions were not entirely answered. an-swered. Although, the afternoon's work left a fairly good estimate of the price of the building, the amount of the bond needed is still in question. Part of the price could be paid from $400,000 recently allocated to the County by the Bureau of Land Management for payments in lieu of taxes, and part could be paid for from the $350,000 recently raised through the sale of the Valley View Medical Center to Intermountain Health Care. Also, the commissioners weren't sure when the best time would be to ha ve the bond election. Three possible dates were discussed: Nov. 2, in conjunction with the general election; the first part of December; and the first part of February. However, everyone involved mainly agreed that the jail was needed and that the citizens of the County were going to need to be educated as to the need so that the bond election would pass. "Somewhere along the line you have to build a jail," said S. Garth Jones, a member of the Jail Advisory Committee. Com-mittee. He was referring to remarks made earlier by attorneys and judges that the current facility was outdated and could possibly someday cause the County to be sued for violation of Constituional rights. |