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Water damage to oak beams at 254 East Houston St. caused by a roof leak Staff Photo by Taylor Nye -
The exterior of 254 East Houston St. Staff Photo by Taylor Nye
Tatum: Reconstruction could add skills for trusties
Sheriff’s Office
The Hopkins County Commissioners in partnership with the Hopkins County Sheriff’s Office is looking to rehab a storage shed at Rosemont and Houston streets and turn it into a productive property for the jail.
The building, of unknown age, is at approximately 254 East Houston St. and constructed of sawn oak beams and corrugated metal siding.
Holes in the roof of the building and years of water damage have lead to a cave-in to one section of the building nearest the entrance. After one particularly strong rain, the local game warden, who housed his boat in the spot, came in to find rotted support beams had fallen into the boat.
“Before long, this whole thing is just going to come down,” Sheriff Lewis Tatum told the News-Telegram.
According to Hopkins County Judge Robert Newsom, the building was purchased when the Hopkins County Sheriff’s Office Jail was constructed in 2015 as a method to store large police seizures, HCSO vehicle overflow and miscellaneous items. After the construction of a walk-in freezer, it also came to house prepared carcasses of livestock from the trustie farm that feeds the jail.
“Now we’ve got to decide about this building. If we’re going to continue using it? What are we using it for?” Newsom said.
Tatum’s plans for the facility include a car lift, larger walk-in freezer and 22-foot dais to be equipped with solar panels. The reason for these installations, according to Tatum, is to provide inmates with opportunities for job training while they are incarcerated.
“Training and education of prisoners and those coming right out, if we help them. A lot of them never had a chance,” Tatum said. “You help them with education, when they go back into the civilian [world] to have a job and provide for their families, maybe this will stop this reoccurring.”
Newsom agreed, saying, “We can show them they do have some worth. It’s my understanding there are over 100 welding jobs today in Hopkins County that are unfulfilled, and we would love to see former inmates become welders, automotive mechanics, diesel mechanics or concrete workers.”
Hopkins County commissioners are often shadowed by trusties who assist in county duties and learn trades, Tatum said.
As far as a timeline, Newsom and Tatum hope to begin the tear-down of the existing building sometime next spring.
“After that, it won’t take six months,” Tatum said.
Tatum hopes to use trustie labor to deconstruct the building and estimates trusties can bring the building down in as little as two weeks once the process is approved. Working on large and visible projects gives trusties a sense of pride, Tatum says.
“This time a year from now we should have this building,” Newsom said.
The county plans to re-use salvageable lumber from inside the structure in order to cut down on materials costs, Newsom said. The outside will be composed of sandstone in order to match the HCSO, district attorney’s office, county clerk building and 8th district court building.
Tatum says he hopes to partially fund the project through monies raised by housing inmates from other counties as well as completing inmate transfers, a project which has been ongoing during his tenure.
“We’re going to try not to use taxpayer dollars,” Precinct 1 Commissioner Mickey Barker told the News-Telegram.
“We’re getting a better property, we’re maintaining better infrastructure, and we’re trying to pay for it all through different means,” Newsom echoed.
The purpose in all of this, according to Tatum? Giving back.
“I was baptized last year,” Tatum said. “I have found out something: If you give, you receiveth. Why can’t we give back? We should give back if we can. I guarantee you, it works.”
The project is currently out for proposals.