MERCER COUNTY Board to ask for jail bids

Legal ads for the new jail will run Jan. 2 and 6 in three area newspapers.
BY MARY GRZEBIENIAK
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
MERCER, Pa. -- The new county jail is a step closer to becoming a reality.
Mercer County commissioners agreed Thursday to advertise for bids for construction.The jail will be on 14.5 acres on Pa. Route 258 in Findley Township. The cost is expected to be about $18 million, and the building will house 266 prisoners.
Legal ads will run Jan. 2 and 6 in three area newspapers, and bid opening is set for Feb. 21 in the commissioners' office at the courthouse. Construction is expected to take 12 to 14 months, pushing expected completion into early 2005.
The county needs a new jail because the present one next to the courthouse is too small. The county expects to spend $1.5 million next year to house prisoners in other county jails.
Approved agreement
In related action, commissioners approved an agreement with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections for sewage treatment at the new jail. The five-year agreement provides for a setup cost up to $100,000 to upgrade a state-owned system to handle the additional sewage from the jail, and $5,800 per month for processing the effluent. The cost is based on construction of 2,300 feet of sewer line and on processing 35,000 gallons per day.
In other business, several contracts were approved for the Restrictive Intermediate Punishment/Day Reporting Program, which is run by the Mercer County Intermediate Punishment Program. They included a $3,870 monthly contract up to $23,221 with Mercer County Behavioral Health Commission for drug and alcohol treatment services; a $1,845 monthly contract up to $11,070 with the Community Counseling Center-ERS, Hermitage, for vocational training; a $767 monthly contract up to $4,603 with Mercer County Family Center, Sharon, for an adult basic education program; and a $17,550 monthly contract up to $105,303 with UPMC Horizon, Greenville, for drug and alcohol treatment services. The program is grant-funded.
Recycling station
They also approved an agreement with Lawrence County to establish a transfer station for recyclables. The station will provide a location in the county where trucks can deposit recyclables collected from the blue depot stations, which are the blue boxes placed in various locations around the county. The recyclables are hauled to a Meadville location, but the transfer station will provide a local deposit site where they will be held until a tractor-trailer load has been collected. Mercer and Lawrence counties are cooperating on the project.
Commissioners also approved an agreement with Infocon Inc., Ebensburg, for imaging application software rental for a $3,250 setup fee and $315 per month for scanning of documents in the prothonotary's office. Prothonotary Elizabeth Fair said the purchase will be funded out of the automation fund, which is derived from fees paid for documents. She said it is another step in making the office more efficient and cutting down the number of paper documents.
They agreed to pay Mercer County Team Pennsylvania Careerlink $150 to use Careerlink facilities for county business. Commissioner Gene Brenneman said Careerlink, which has interviewing and testing facilities, will be used, for example, in hiring for the new jail.