IOWA CITY

A needs assessment report from Shive-Hattery Architecture and Engineering of Iowa City calls for up to 140 beds to be a part of a new Johnson County jail.

Johnson County Supervisor V Fixmer-Oraiz would like to see zero beds. At least, that’s their idealistic hope for a calmer time.

That drew a passionate response from County Sheriff Brad Kunkel during the Supervisors’ work session July 10.

“I don’t work in the world that ought to be,” Kunkel told the Board. “I work in the world that is. Fact of the matter is, there are dangerous people that need to be in custody. We have to have an appropriate place to keep them, to house them and provide them while they’re there.”

The county’s jail facility has deteriorated so much that contingency plans are being made to transfer prisoners to jails in other counties if a building emergency surfaces. Building monitors have been put in place to keep an eye on cracks and other building deficiencies.

At the same time that Iowa City is also assessing its jail conditions, the needs assessment report estimates a new jail and sheriff building would cost about $80 million and should be expansive enough to host 140 beds, and expanded room for a growing police department and its staffers.

Fixmer-Oraiz rejected the report during a discussion that approached two hours.

“We need to know who is in the jail and why, how they got there, why are they coming back?” Fixmer-Oraiz said. “We know that jails tear up our families, destroy people’s careers. There is nothing rehabilitative about a jail. You cannot give somebody care in a jail. Fundamentally, you cannot. The idea that we would even expand mental healthcare in the jail is absurd to me.

“I don’t know how people can feel healed in a place that’s incarcerating them and is surveilling them. It’s a place of punishment. It is people in cages.”

Still, the place of punishment is in disrepair.

Last August, engineers from Iowa City-based Axiom Consultants assessed the condition of the building and detailed a number of repairs needed immediately. Among those is a roof replacement, along with notable cracks and deficiencies in exterior and interior brickwork and walls.

The jail opened in 1981 with 50 full-time employees in the sheriff’s department; that number has nearly doubled and so has the need for beds and cells.

“Right now, we have a facility that is falling apart,” Supervisor Chair Rod Sullivan said.

“Civil rights are being violated every single day in our jail,” he said, “Inmates don’t have enough space. They don’t have access to a library like they’re supposed to, they don’t have access to physical exercise space like they’re supposed to, we can’t house women the way we’re supposed to. We are completely screwed when it comes to the physical limitations of the space.”

A larger and newer facility would give “more room for classes, consults, families,” said Supervisor Lisa Green-Douglass.

Fixmer-Oraiz, as they stated in a previous meeting, said more community outreach should have been done before the report was finalized and a proposed general design was presented.

“I suggest we, quite frankly, get a much different report,” Fixmer-Oraiz said.

At the end of the lengthy back-and-forth discussion, at times turning into an argument, the Board then heard from Laura Bergus, a City Council member in Iowa City. Bergus wondered why, in a two-hour discussion, even the possibility of a sharing agreement between the county and the city wasn’t also discussed or included in the needs assessment.

The Board plans to revisit discussion of the jail in August or September.

Weight Restrictions

Two bridges in rural southwest Johnson County are going to have weight restrictions due to damage from heavy vehicles.

The targeted bridges are one on Bayertown Road over Picayune Creek, in Sharon Township, and one on Naple Avenue SW over Crooked Creek, southwest of Hills.

“We don’t take posting bridges at this kind of a level lightly,” said Ed Bartels, Assistant Johnson County Engineer. “This is kind of a last resort to keep them open to passenger traffic. The kind of damage we’re seeing out there is consistent with overload damage. It means that people are not behaving the way they are supposed to and they’re driving stuff that’s way too heavy over these bridges.”

The posted weight limits will be three tons (6,000 pounds), which will make the bridges prohibited for school buses and heavy farm tractors and machinery. Even an empty school bus is about twice the weight restriction.

“Six thousand pounds is pretty much an empty half-ton pickup,” said Supervisor Jon Green, who lives in rural Lone Tree. “We need our neighbors and constituents to observe that in order for us to keep these bridges open until we can replace them.”

A third bridge on Greencastle Avenue, west of Iowa City, is also coming under a restriction.

All of the bridges are on a county plan for replacement, and work on the Naples Avenue bridge is expected to be done this summer or fall.

Public Hearing

A public hearing for the fall budget amendment has been set for 9 a.m. July 25.

Dana Aschenbrenner, Finance Director, said the first amendment for the Fiscal Year 2025 budget includes $13.4 million in capital expenditures and another $1.2 million in spending at the Historic Poor Farm.

The FY25 budget was approved in April, calling for expenditures of $169 million.

Board Actions

The Board approved service agreements with the Antelope Lending Library ($33,185) and Springmier Community Library ($10,000).

Next meeting:

The Board’s next formal session is at 9 a.m. July 18.