The problems with the Webster County Law Enforcement Center and Jail started just a few years after it was built four decades ago, previous reporting from The Messenger shows.

In August 1980, Webster County voters approved the $5.3 million Webster County Law Enforcement Center that now sits at 702 First Ave. S. By 1989, then-Sheriff Chuck Griggs was reporting that the jail, located on the third floor of the LEC, was over capacity. At the time, the jail’s official capacity was 29 inmates, but in October 1989, the county had 45 in custody. The jail was “constantly overcrowded, preventing some people from serving time on schedule,” a Messenger article from the time stated.

The next year, the Webster County Board of Supervisors approved the renovation of a county-owned building at 602 Third Ave. N., to be used as an annex for the jail. According to Griggs at the time, only those sentenced to relatively short periods of incarceration would be housed at the annex. The building was housing the Board of Health, Homemaker-Health Aide and sanitarian offices, and had previously housed a juvenile detention center. The jail annex opened in December 1990.

-Graphic courtesy of The Samuels Group/Venture Architects
The existing jail on the third floor of the LEC has a linear floor plan, creating several safety and security concerns, including the absence of any kind of direct line-of-sight into any of the day rooms (in green) or cells (in purple). Corrections officers must monitor inmates using only video from a windowless control room (in red). Officers also rove the hallways (in peach) but are unable to see into cells without going into the day rooms, potentially coming face-to-face with violent offenders.

In January 1991, the Board of Supervisors was discussing needed repairs on the LEC building, including a leaking roof, a “bubbling and cracking” roof-top basketball court and a thrice-failed HVAC air compressor. Cracks in the face of the building were also identified in 1991.

2000-2003

A decade later, Griggs, who was still sheriff, reported to the Board of Supervisors that the jail was once again “squeezed for space,” according to a Messenger article in August 2000. Between the third-floor jail and annex on Third Avenue North, the county had 41 beds available for inmates in custody, and at the time, all were occupied and an additional 10 inmates were being housed in the Hardin County Jail. Griggs was working on adding 39 more beds to the Webster County facilities.

“Our trouble is it’s the same ones (inmates) all the time,” Griggs told The Messenger about the jail population.

A March 2001 story from The Messenger would later note that in 1999, the Webster County Jail population increased by 13 percent over the year before. In 2000, the increase was at 16 percent.

-Messenger graphic by Nick Manwarren
In 2001, the Webster County Board of Supervisors approved plans for a $6.7 million, 82-bed jail that never came to fruition. In 2007, the board considered a plan for an 82-bed $18.7 million jail that also never came to fruition. Today, a $45.5 million 130-bed jail and sheriff’s office facility is being proposed. Webster County voters will vote Tuesday on whether to approve a bond referendum to pay for the project.

By October 2000, the Board of Supervisors hired an architectural firm that specializes in designing jail facilities to explore renovating the jail annex. They would later learn that a renovation of the annex would have a $1.4 million price tag and only add nine beds. Floyd Magnusson, who was the board’s chairman at the time said he didn’t support the proposal and would “hate to put that much money into an old building.”

Griggs proposed a new 150-bed facility to be constructed and in December, the Board of Supervisors hired the firm PCS & Associates to study the feasibility of a new jail.

In February 2001, PCS returned to the board with a report stating that a new jail would eliminate the need for the Webster County Sheriff’s Office needing to house inmates in other county jails. PCS presented the initial plans for a $10.4 million 128-bed jail facility. A consultant from Plepla & Associates, which worked with PCS on the study, estimated that a new facility would have a “35-year life.”

The Board of Supervisors called the formation of a task force of members from all county communities to pursue the idea. The task force looked into possible sites for a new facility — city of Fort Dodge land behind the Fareway store, the Oleson junkyard and property behind the Laramar Ballroom and the Corpus Christi Catholic School — as well as what features should be included in the facility’s design.

By June 2001, the committee began considering adding space for the Fort Dodge Police Department, 911 communications center and the Webster County Attorney’s Office, creating a complete law enforcement center. A vacant piece of land near Veterans Bridge on First Avenue South was also being considered as a possible location.

In August 2001, the Board of Supervisors were presented with two options: $10.9 million for a jail and sheriff’s department and $12.8 million for a new LEC. The proposed design for the jail was a 128-bed single-level facility with space to add on if future jail “pods” were needed — similar to the “podular” design of the proposed jail in 2023.

At the time, the biggest concern of the existing jail was the lack of adequate space for inmates. In fiscal year 2021, the county spent roughly $250,000 housing inmates in other counties, a number that does not reflect the cost of transportation or the transporting deputies’ salaries. Another $227,000 was expected to be spent by the end of fiscal year 2022.

Between August 2001 and the spring of 2002, the design plans for a potential new jail facility and/or LEC went through several revisions until a final design was accepted by the Board of Supervisors in March 2002 for an 82-bed jail for $6.7 million. The Fort Dodge Betterment Foundation even offered to gift the county 3.5 acres of land west of the Fort Dodge Correctional Facility to build the new jail. There was also discussion about the new jail and the FDCF possibly being able to share laundry services if the jail was built there.

Not much else is mentioned about the jail proposal in either available Messenger archives or Board of Supervisors meeting minutes. The minutes of the Sept. 10, 2002, meeting state that a jail study was reviewed and “it was unofficially agreed to proceed with Option Three of the study and directed the consultants to put together some figures on the operational costs of such a facility,” though the minutes do not reflect any details about “Option Three.” There is no other mention in later meeting minutes.

Most of the members of the jail task force have since passed, but former Sheriff Jim Stubbs, who was chief deputy under Griggs at the time, is still around. On Sunday, he told the Messenger that he recalled that the project fizzled out because the cost began to increase and it became too costly.

A January 2003 issue of The Messenger highlights some problems of the jail on the third floor of the LEC that are still seen today.

“Water leaking from the jail on the building’s third floor down to offices and rooms on the second floor has County Attorney Tim Schott concerned about the health of his employees,” the story reported. Schott also told The Messenger at the time that “it’s not always just water coming down” and that it’s sometimes human waste.

That leaking was being caused by inmates plugging the toilets in the jail until they overflow and seep downwards.

A story that ran in Saturday’s Messenger explained that the overflowing sewage caused by restless inmates is still very much a problem today.

2006-2012

By 2006, then-Sheriff Brian Mickelson went to the board with the same complaints that Griggs did in 2001 and requested a new jail study to be conducted. That study, done by StrataVision, a consulting firm from Des Moines, was presented to the board in May 2007.

The StrataVision study confirmed the building’s inadequacies first identified in 2001. StrataVision presented two proposals for a solution — refurbish the current jail and construct a jail annex on the county parking lot west of the LEC for $11.9 million, or build an all-new 82-bed jail facility for $18,662,463.

A search through the Board of Supervisors meeting minutes from the time show no more mention of a new jail or LEC project until October 2009. In March 2010, the board approved a plan to renovate the basement, first and second floors of the LEC building and build a new 56-bed jail off site, and a month later approved the sale of $9 million general obligation local option sales and services tax bonds for the project.

However, by October 2010, the board decided to postpone a new jail facility and construct repairs on the existing jail and LEC. In addition to the LOSST funds, the county also received IJOBS funding from the state to pay for part of the building rehabilitation. That project was completed in 2012, and focused mainly on the lower two floors of the building and the building’s HVAC system, adding just four additional beds to the jail floor, bringing the jail’s capacity to 56. It is unclear from the available archives when the jail’s capacity increased from 29 in the early 2000s, or when the jail annex on Third Avenue North closed.

2021-now

In late 2021, current Sheriff Luke Fleener approached the Webster County Board of Supervisors, echoing the same concerns as his predecessors Griggs and Mickelson — there isn’t enough space for the inmates in custody, the county is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to house inmates elsewhere and inmates interfering with the plumbing on the third floor are causing dangerous and disgusting problems on the lower floors. Also, Fleener added, the building is aging rapidly due to the extreme wear and tear on it being used as a jail.

Over the last two years, Fleener has worked with the Board of Supervisors and consultants from The Samuels Group and Venture Architects, two firms that specialize in designing and developing government and jail facilities, to come up with the current proposed 130-bed jail and sheriff’s office facility. The project — including the anticipated cost of land acquisition — is expected to be about $45.5 million and on Tuesday, Webster County voters will have the opportunity to voice whether or not they think this is something the county needs.

The similarities of the problems with the jail and the solutions today with the problems and solutions found in 2001 and 2007 are striking. A sketch of the proposed floor plan of the final design in 2003 is nearly identical to the floor plan designed in 2023.

“We should have bitten the bullet back 10 years ago,” former Webster County Supervisor Keith Dencklau said at a public informational meeting about the current jail project on Thursday.

Dencklau was on the board in 2010 when the board voted to postpone a new jail facility.

“We should have never done it,” he said. “We should have had a referendum, we should have done that back then when it was half the cost. And if we don’t do it right now, in five years it’ll be $60 million.”

The first five parts of this series ran on Oct. 25, Oct. 27, Nov. 2, Nov. 3 and Nov. 4.