County votes to cool things down for sheriff, jail
Firm hired to repair faulty AC at jail, sheriff’s office
Kendall County Commission Monday unanimously approved a $3.65 million purchase for the overhaul of air conditioning units for the sheriff’s office and county jail after repeated failures left the building sweltering during the summer’s heat wave.
Precinct 3 Commissioner Richard Chapman said conditions at the sheriff’s office and jail necessitate immediate action due to lengthy order and delivery schedules for replacement HVAC equipment.
“We need to stop messing around and just get the project done to make the building habitable in the future,” Chapman told fellow commissioners. “Somehow, we made it through this hot summer. I don’t know if we’ll make it through another one.”
The item was declared an emergency purchase, allowing the court to bypass the competitive bid process and contract directly with Butler-Cohen Design and Build, the firm currently handling the county’s jail expansion project as well as the air conditioning work on the county’s adult probation building.
The $3,658,516 expenditure exceeds previous estimates provided to the commission, Chapman said. The passage of time and the escalating cost of materials are partly to blame.
“With the sheriff’s help, and engineering's help … we have looked at alternatives to try to lower the cost, including moving the sheriff completely out of the building,” Chapman said. “We’ve thrown all options on the table and the price is just not coming down.”
Chapman answered Commissioner Andra Wisian’s concern about where the problems originated. The county has had issues with the jail since its Jan. 22, 2019, opening.
“It’s due to deficiencies in the design and installation with a previous contractor,” Chapman said. “We are currently in litigation to get this money, or at least part of it, back.”
The vote gave County Judge Shane Stolarczyk authorization to sign Butler Cohen to perform the replacements and repairs. Terms of the contract specify a 32-week schedule from initial mobilization to project completion.
“We’ve been going over this for 6-8 months, coming up with an appropriate design. We have done everything that we can,” Chapman said, “and now we’re at a point where, unfortunately, the air conditioning units themselves are going to be a long time out, 6 to 8 months to get the units here.”
Chapman assured the court that conditions at the jail and sheriff’s office cannot persist into another cruel hot summer.
“If you would’ve spent any time over (there) with the sheriff this summer, you would’ve understood, we can’t do that again,” he said. “We can’t go through a summer again with the problems we had at the jail.”
Chapman had good things to say about the firm being hired “to make things right.”
“Right now, they are under budget and under the time limit we set out (on the jail expansion). I would recommend them again in the future if we have to deal with them, based on those two things,” he added
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