TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – Plans to construct the new Shawnee County Jail mental health facility will start in August.
Tim Phelps, deputy director of the Shawnee Co. Department of Corrections, alongside KBS Constructors, Inc., presented county commissioners the design plans for the facility during a work session meeting on Monday, July 15.
Once complete it will be a 23,300-square-foot facility with three levels, all with inmate cells, showers, visitation rooms, and therapy rooms to focus on mental health for residents with an outdoor recreation area.
The facility is expected to be complete by April 2026.
Phelps said the designs were created to meet the standard safety measures typically needed in a prison facility but create a comfortable, less stressful environment.
”One might think that building a jail is just building a jail and if we put some fluffy stuff in there then it will look like a happier jail for people with behavioral health issues but that isn’t reality,” said Phelps.
“For example, I asked them to leave this picture up because those windows look to the outside there,” said Phelps. “Those don’t look like anything else we have in our facility. Those look more residential, but they meet a ballistic need(s) and the safety needs that we have inside a correctional environment, but they look more like what you might see in a home environment. It took us a while to get to that kind of a design, and throughout this thing, what you see is a healthy mix between the hardened correction of reality and the softer reality that we need to help people calm down a little bit more so that we can get them engaged in programming and approve their condition.”
During his presentation, Phelps said he was grateful for the $10 million grant for the facility from the State of Kansas which will match funds also provided by Shawnee County.
Shawnee County Solid Waste Department operations
Data shows that fewer Shawnee Co. residents are receiving curbside recycling services through the Shawnee Co. Solid Waste Department.
The Solid Waste Department also updated county commissioners on its latest operations on Monday.
Most notably, since the department began charging $3.50 for curbside recycling services in 2023, the number of residents who recycle through the county dropped by 15.12%.
Residents were allowed to opt out of recycling services following the 2023 change.
Bill Sutton, the Solid Waste Department director says the department had 48,793 customers in 2023, until now Shawnee Co. has 42,334 curbside recycling customers. Sutton did mention that the data shows that 7,378 residents opted out of curbside recycling which does not add up because the department also gained new customers.
On another note, Sutton mentioned the idea of a pickup truck with a dumpster attached. During the winter, trash services struggled to reach residences because of snow and ice, but the pickup truck is a compact way to reach customers that garbage trucks cannot.
This idea is in the initial stages and needs approval first.
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