By Nick Buglione
Nassau County Legislator Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside) toured the jail with East Meadow civic leaders, jail officials and representatives from the correction officers union on Friday, May 6, and was encouraged to see improvements under way at the rundown facility.
³I saw areas that were being renovated for the first time in 30 years,² said Toback, who is head of the Legislature¹s Health and Safety Committee. ³We are expending capital funds there and it¹s good, and we need to find more.²
Since it opened in 1957 and later expanded to an 832-inmate facility, sections of the Nassau County jail have fallen victim to neglect. For years, correction officers have tried to draw attention to areas of the jail in need of renovation, according to John Duer, president of the Sheriff Officers Association, which represents more than 1,000 correction officers working at the jail in East Meadow.
³These structural defects don¹t happen over night,² said Richard Cardozo, an East Meadow civic leader and a member of the Nassau County Jail Advisory Committee, who went along on the recent tour. ³This place suffered from neglect for many years.²
The A, B, D, 832 and E buildings all can use work in varying degrees, Duer said, though the A Building has been closed for over a decade because it doesn¹t meet the fire code. Correction officers have logged numerous complaints with the New York State Department of Labor¹s Public Employee Safety and Health Bureau, Duer said.
Running the gamut from roof leaks to electrical hazards to malfunctioning elevators, the complaints prompted state inspections resulting in daily fines that have so far cost taxpayers approximately $50,000. ³Right now, penalties are still accumulating,² said Tim Beadnell, a spokesman for the state Department of Labor.
One of the main violations was a leaking roof in the B Building, which can house about 300 inmates. Water was leaking from the roof and collecting around the electrical boxes that open and close jail doors. Tim Driscoll, deputy county executive for public safety, said that the roof has been repaired. ³There was a problem, and we fixed it,² he said.
Driscoll also said that work is under way to refurbish all five floors of the B Building. ³Right now they¹re scraping down the cells to raw metal so they can be repainted,² he said. ³It¹s something we¹ve wanted to do for a while.²
Duer, who has worked at the jail for 23 years, added that an engineer would be coming in to assess any structural water damage to B Building.
Though encouraged by the recent repairs, Duer said there is much more work to be done at the jail. ³I¹m going to continue to be the squeaky wheel,² he said, adding that he hopes to take more elected officials on tours of the facility. ³We want everybody to understand what we¹re [talking] about.²
Robert Zafonte, president of the East Meadow Civic Association and a member of the Jail Advisory Committee, who helped set up the recent tour, agreed. ³It¹s a start, and we¹d like to see added improvements,² he said. ³There¹s a lot more to do. This is just the tip of the iceberg.²
In the last few months, the jail has suffered a barrage of bad press, such as a Nassau County comptroller¹s audit that revealed financial mismanagement, including improperly authorized overtime that cost the facility $20 million in 2003. Following the report, members of the county Legislature called for the head of the jail, Sheriff Ed Reilly, to quit.
Meanwhile, a second comptroller¹s audit, released in March, found that jail administrators did a poor job of keeping track of how many correction officers were receiving disability compensation and for how long, costing the county millions of dollars.
Between 2000 and 2004, an average of about 50 officers received full pay and benefits for work-related injuries, some for as long as eight years, according to the report.
Comments about this story? NBuglione@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 236.
