Published: November 06, 2009 10:40 am      

Jail kitchen cooked

After two failed inspections, state says galley is a goner

San Marcos — The Texas Commission on Jail Standards gave notice Thursday that it will shut down the kitchen at the Hays County Jail effective Nov. 20.

The agency’s executive director also said he plans to “stay on top” of activities at the lockup as mandated repair work is ongoing.

County commissioners, meanwhile, have hired a company to fix the facility’s roof, voted to replace the facility’s old air conditioning system and are effecting other repairs using existing staff. A consultant has also been engaged to look at both short and long term solutions for the 20-year-old complex on Uhland Road.

“It can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing that we’re so close, just down the street,” the commission’s Executive Director Adan Munoz said from his Austin office, in explaining how he intends to keep abreast of developments.

The jail failed its last two regularly scheduled inspections, one in April and one in September. After the second failed inspection, Munoz specifically directed county authorities to fix mold and drainage problems in the kitchen.

County Judge Liz Sumter, in a letter to the TCJS, blamed much of the mold problem on leakage through the roof and the air conditioning system housed there. “When these components are replaced, the kitchen environment should be stabilized,” she wrote, adding that the new roof will be installed before the end of this year and the “remaining work will be complete by the end of March 1010.”

The TCJS had also mandated other preventative maintenance and repairs be made and that inmates be housed elsewhere while work was occurring.

Munoz said he was ready to issue a remedial order “to ensure all prisoners are being removed from areas that had mold,” but didn’t after being assured inmates had been transferred.

He said on Thursday he was told more than 50 inmates from the Hays jail are now being housed in Guadalupe County. “As long as they continue to remove them they’ll be OK, but we’re going to stay on top of things,” he said.

Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Leroy Opiela said plans are to bring in a mobile kitchen “and continue business as usual while they repair the one that’s here.”