By: Nick Buglione
It couldn-t have happened at a better time, said John Duer, president of the Sheriff Officers Association, which represents more than 1,000 correction officers working at the jail in East Meadow.
For the past few years, correction officers have tried to draw attention to the areas of the jail they believe desperately need a facelift. The A, B, D, 832 and E buildings all can use work in varying degrees, Duer said, though he noted that nobody works in the A Building because it doesn-t meet the fire code and has been closed for at least a decade.
These buildings have been deteriorating for years, said Duer, who has worked at the jail for 22 years. They-ve been getting worse.
The jail opened in 1957 and later expanded to an 832-inmate facility. Roofs are now leaking. There is water damage. Loose bricks are falling. And mold is growing unchecked, he said. With the mold, we don-t know what the correction officers are breathing and what that-s going to do to them, Duer said.
Officers have logged complaints about the jail in the past few years with the New York State Department of Labor-s Public Employee Safety and Health (PESH) bureau, one of which resulted in a fine of around $9,000.
We received a complaint in April 2001, and that complaint was for rodent droppings, said Jean Genovese, a Department of Labor spokeswoman.
Bureau investigators later confirmed the presence of excessive droppings and ordered the jail to clean them up. But when a follow-up investigation revealed jail officials had not, a fine was issued, Genovese said.
They have since abated the problem, but the penalty is still outstanding, she said, noting that the New York State Attorney General-s Office handles fine collections.
Complaints of workplace violence, roof leaks, electrical hazards and malfunctioning elevators were received in March 2003, and a subsequent PESH inspection confirmed all of them. Those problems have been abated, with the exception of the electrical hazards and roof leaks, Genovese said, though no fine has been issued.
Suozzi would probably note, however, that the elevators still need a little more work. After technicians got the stuck elevator back on line, he took a tour of the facility with jail and other county officials late last month and agreed that much work needed to be done, Duer said.
Obviously, the buildings vary greatly in age, so some are in need of more than others, said Eric Kopp, deputy county executive of public safety, who accompanied Suozzi on the tour.
Neither Kopp nor Duer could estimate how much money the renovations would cost. With five buildings needing repair work, it would likely be in the millions.
Given that the county is still financially strapped, Suozzi has asked union representatives to sit down with Nassau County jail boss Sheriff Ed Reilly to prioritize what work needs to be done first, Kopp said. The county simply cannot afford to take care of every concern over there at once, he added.
We have some capital spending in place in the budget for this year, Kopp said, which will likely go toward some of the needed roof repairs.
Meanwhile, Genovese said that last April PESH received another complaint on the roof leaks at the jail and was planning to look into it. At press time, the investigation had not taken place.
