County Corner

 The big ticket item discussed at this week's meeting of the Gilpin County Commissioners was pretty much a no-brainer, but it reflected a lot of lessons we had learned in the last few years about handling large construction projects on County facilities.
The Gilpin County Justice Center is just a little more than 10 years old. It came about, obviously, because of the increased need for judicial, law enforcement and detention facilities as a result of the inauguration of limited stakes gaming in 1991. Those of us who remember the dreadful jail down in the basement of the old Courthouse here in Central City, or the court chambers on the 2nd floor (which were briefly moved to the old Clark School before the Justice Center was constructed) have no illusions about the "good old days." The facilities were cramped, dangerous, and altogether inadequate.
In constructing the Justice Center, moreover, the decision was made to co-house some other departments that really didn't have adequate office space in the County. Since some Human Services cases-particularly child welfare, dependency and neglect, and the like-call for swift court action to intervene in potentially hazardous situations, it made sense to put Human Services at the Justice Center; previously the department had operated out of a rented trailer at the north end of the old Road & Bridge building. Similarly, the public health nurse at that time was largely responsible for inmate health care, so it was logical to house the Public Health Department near the jail as well.
But a lot of corners were cut in the design of the building; last year we applied for a Department of Local Affairs gaming impact grant to construction a parking garage and evidence room that were cut out of the original design due to cost constraints.
Those same constraints may have led to some shortcuts in the construction process, too, and we're paying for those now. Tuesday the Commissioners approved a contract for over $1/2 million to re-roof the entire Justice Center. Even in our climate, a commercial roof should last more than a dozen years, and frankly the roof has been leaking almost since its original installation. While all the offices there have put up with the problem amiably, they shouldn't have had to live with it, and they really deserve our apologies for taking so long to get this project underway.
It's good that we now have on staff a Facilities Manager, Bill Paulman, with the kind of background and expertise to assure that we get our money's worth on this sort of project. Certainly everyone was very impressed with the supervision Bill provided for the new Road & Bridge building, and we are all confident that this roof will last a lot longer than the original one. We owe it to our citizens-whether we're spending $500, or $500,000-to insure that we get the highest quality product possible, and the biggest bang for the taxpayers' bucks.
--Roger Baker