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Wonders why jail painting not done by local contractor

By Staff | Aug 3, 2009

To the Editor;

As the groundbreaking draws near for our new jail, the opening continues to be delayed. Apparently, a slow painter has prevented the new flooring and clean up to be finished. The contractor for the painting couldn’t be found initially and usually only one painter was on the job.

Seems like a local Faribault County painting company could have been used – at least they would know where to find them. I believe I am correct in stating that no local painters in Faribault County were approached about painting, same with flooring.

I remember the county board touting the fact that they were going to use as much local talent as they could. But we should know by now that in government, what they say and what they do are often two different things, at all levels. It sure would be nice to know how much of the $13 million construction cost went to Faribault County contractors.

How could a person not laugh when we found out the toilets were installed in the incorrect direction – or was it location? How much is that going to cost to fix and who will be paying for it? Seems like a $7,000 per month construction manager should have caught that one. I suspect the county will again have to pick up the tab for that miscue.

So after ‘softwatergate’ we now have ‘toiletgate’ and we, the taxpayers, will be the ones getting flushed again in the end.

As of today there are a total of eight prisoners in our county lockup. That number hasn’t moved much in either direction for 20 years. We can thank our county commissioners for deciding that we needed a 67-bed, $24-million (with interest) jail.

Can’t you just hear that flushing sound?

Uffda Megge,

Mike Enger, Blue Earth