Laf. jail committee hears more presentations

The committee charged with determining how Lafourche Parish will go about constructing a new jail reconvened last week and heard presentations from two architectural firms.

Adam Fishbein, principal at Baton Rouge-based Grace and Hebert Architects, presented the committee with the cost and floor plans of six state facilities his firm designed.

During and after the presentation, committee members expressed interest in building a facility similar to the Livingston Parish Detention Center.

Largely a dormitory facility with 38 cells and 673 beds, the Livingston jail cost $17 million and was completed in 2009. It offers line-of-sight monitoring and is primed for future expansion if necessary, two amenities Lafourche Sheriff Craig Webre has asked for in the past.

Marcel Fournet Jr. detailed the Lafourche Parish Detention Center structural capacity report his firm, Fournet and Fournet, completed earlier this month.

Although the detention center is antiquated and the parish’s prison population has outgrown the facility, it could be refurbished and used in a support capacity moving forward, Fournet said.

“Going from 20 to 240 prisoners is quite a jump, and I know you have some sheltered outside of that,” said Fournet, whose firm designed the current jail, which was built in 1968.

Sheriff Craig Webre told the Tri-Parish Times earlier this month that any decision made on refurbishing the detention center would have to keep in mind cost versus benefit and federal jail standards, which have tightened in the 43 years since the facility was built.

“I think that it has some value,” Parish President Charlotte Randolph said.

Randolph said she attended a five-day training seminar that provided information on the “intricacies” of building a jail three years ago and would pool the information before the committee’s next meeting.

“Either tonight or soon, we’ll have to determine what amount of money we can afford,” Randolph said at the start of the meeting.

After the meeting, Randolph refused to give an estimate on what she thought the parish would be able to afford, saying, “We’ll start at zero and work our way up.”

The committee has discussed proposing a tax referendum sometime next year. Committee Chairman Lindel Toups has repeatedly said the measure needs to be a part of a “package deal.”

The referendum would likely ask voters if the parish should collect a new tax for the jail, possibly a quarter-cent hike, but it could also include a quarter-cent measure for drainage and flood-protection measures and a rededication of property tax mills.

The next committee meeting is scheduled for Sept. 21.