Whatcom Sheriff relocating inmates, halting visiting as jail elevators fail
The main elevators that service the three floors of the downtown Whatcom County Jail have broken down, affecting safety operations and requiring some incarcerated people to be housed at the Work Center on Division Street, according to a Monday afternoon Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office news release.
Whatcom County Facilities Management and the elevator vendors have been working to resolve the issue for three months, according to the press release. The two main elevators in the downtown jail have been operating sporadically for the past three months, and one of them has stopped working completely, according to Deb Slater, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office. The other has periods where it works intermittently, Slater said in an email in response to Herald questions.
Due to the “age and deteriorating nature of the system,” alternative options have been implemented to ensure the safety of staff and the people incarcerated in the facility, the release states. Slater said alternative plans have been developed that would allow jail staff to get emergency personnel to any of the floors or move incarcerated people between floors.
Around 20 people have been moved from the downtown jail to the Work Center, Slater said. All of the people fit the standard classification criteria for being housed at the Work Center. She said their transfer has been delayed several days due to logistics and the need to have them clear medical quarantine before their transfer.
As of Tuesday morning, Feb. 2, 153 people were housed at the downtown jail, according to Slater. The downtown jail, which opened in 1984, can house around 212 people.
“The current situation involving failed elevators is not just an inconvenience, it presents profound security and life-safety issues,” Whatcom County Sheriff Bill Elfo said in a prepared statement. “Aside from being unable to carry out day-to-day operations, we cannot adequately respond to the security and medical emergencies that so frequently occur within the facility. Utilizing fire escapes is not a viable or safe option. We are trying to mitigate the situation by reducing the jail population through an expansion of booking restrictions and where possible, transfers to other facilities. However, when we are forced to take such measures to meet security, health, and constitutional standards, the public suffers as people who should be in jail remain on the streets.”
In a 2016 assessment done by the Edmonds-based company design2LAST, consultants found that the original elevators “have reached the end of their useful life and problems are being reported,” according to the assessment.
The consultants wrote that the elevators were within five years of reaching their useful life and that problems were “likely to continue and become increasingly more major and more costly,” the assessment states.
The replacement cost of the elevators, which the consultants had suggested be part of the 2020 budget, was estimated to be $985,739, the document shows.
All visitation has been suspended to the downtown jail indefinitely out of caution, the release states.
Securus Technologies, the sheriff’s office’s vendor for jail visitation services, provides options for friends and family to connect with an incarcerated person by phone call or video chat.
A call costs $0.16 per minute, or $0.60 per minute if the call is international, Slater said.
For video chats, a deposit of $3 is required per automated transaction, but the fee increases to $5.95 for a manual transaction, she said.
For a remote friends and family visit for 30 minutes, the cost is $5.
When asked whether the sheriff’s office would be waiving fees for friends and family to contact an incarcerated person, Slater said “We are working with the vendor on other options for the video connect visitation.”
The Herald has asked whether a free visitation option will be made available.
The failures at the downtown jail come at a time when Whatcom County officials are starting work on a needs assessment to ultimately prepare to ask voters for a third time to approve the construction of a new jail.
The Stakeholder Advisory Committee for the Public Health, Safety and Justice Initiative held its first meeting of 2022 on Jan. 20.
During the meeting, members discussed moving forward with a needs assessment that looks at the current Whatcom County criminal justice system, including the downtown jail and Work Center, as well as behavioral health and addiction programs available in the community.
The group’s next meeting is expected to be sometime in April.
Voters rejected ballot measures in 2015 and 2017 that would have added two-tenths of one percent to the county sales tax for funds that would replace the downtown jail.
In August 2019, Whatcom officials were hoping to have a jail ballot measure in time for the 2020 general election, but those plans were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the pandemic, a $4.2 million project, which repaired all the doors in the downtown jail, took place. Structural damage to a dormitory was also repaired, according to previous reporting in The Herald.
This story was originally published January 31, 2022 at 4:19 PM.
