On June 20, 2013, the Escambia County Board of County Commissioners voted 4-1 to take over the Escambia County Jail and Central Booking & Detention . Sheriff David Morgan had asked for $5.2 million to upgrade the facility to meet DOJ standards. Interim County Administrator George Touart said he take over the facilities and make the necessary changes for $2.6 million. Seven months later, the CBD exploded, costing taxpayers much more over the next eight years.
David Morgan discusses the vote.
In the end, the whole CBF debacle can be summed up by one phrase in a county letter sent to Morgan – “not cost effective.” The BCC dismissed the June 2012 flooding of the Central Booking Facility as a one-hundred year storm event and decided to respond on the cheap. It did eventually – after lots of feet dragging – repair the damage and also do or start to do at least some of what Sheriff Morgan recommended to better floodproof the CBF. Money was never the issue. The county had and has no shortage of money for what is important to the five county princes (commissioners) as they lord over their principalities. No one in District 3 can vote for or against four commissioners so they have no real incentive to care about District 3. The BCC did not accept Morgan’s key recommendation to move critical infrastructure out of the basement. Big mistake! Also, the BCC failed to first focus on those floodproofing measures that it did agree to take. As I recall the event, when the CBF started to take on water on April 29, and inmates complained of smelling natural gas, the county had not yet installed the pumps to get the water out of the basement. So, 671 days after the 2012 flood, the CBF flooded again and worse and then – BOOM! Two died and 180+ were injured. A grand jury report followed. No one was held accountable. The BCC rebuilt the CBF in the same general area against the recommendation of the grand jury. State law does not allow voters to remove commissioners by recall (it should) but if it did a solid case could have been made for neglect of duty and/or misfeasance (negligent discharge of an official duty). For his part, Morgan missed an opportunity to directly confront the BCC instead relying on his minions to deal with county staff. He should have called them out at every meeting and public event. Morgan should also have lobbied the media to make the case to floodproof the CBF and maybe the Jail and Sheriff’s Office too. He did not likely because he openly hated the PNJ even more than it was hated by the BCC. For its part, the PNJ did provide some pretty solid news reporting on this issue in the 2012-2014 timeframe. You can read the old issues on the library’s website.