Reader Responses

Having considerable experience in the heavy construction industry I submit some areas of concern to ponder prior to the Smith County jail bond election.

Like Mr. Tom Harken (who suggested considering the Goodyear Plant facility for the jail construction), I moved from the Beaumont area to Tyler. Beaumont once had a similar issue of constructing a new facility. A new city, county and state facility was constructed on the city's outer limits on land classified as agriculture (low tax base).

This has worked well for the area and during construction did little to hinder traffic or interrupt the normal course of doing business. All building materials were stored on site and handled by on site construction equipment, saving time and money as no extra "lay down" property had to be rented. Perhaps it would be wise for a committee to visit Beaumont and discuss its experience.

Should the facility be constructed in the uptown area several factors should be expected. Some streets will need to be closed to move prefabbed material from some "lay down" area to the construction site. This normally involves heavy equipment such as rubber tired cranes. The hazard of moving this type material and allowing normal traffic to continue would be an unacceptable liability.

If the present sidewalk system is allowed to be open it would be necessary to provide covered walkways for pedestrian safety, an added cost. Utilizing some present uptown facilities will require renting additional space for those now using the facility, at added cost. A remote building site would not involve these problems.

On every construction site I have been involved with that utilized existing structures, unforeseen problems were encountered requiring additional work, material and cost. Building from a "grass roots" site is usually far better and cheaper.

One only needs to consider the time involved with moving and handling material to build a multi-story facility to understand why cost is much greater than that of a low-rise. There are many other factors that will be involved not mentioned above.

As for the Goodyear or other facility, I think it would be more advantageous to look for property with a low tax base and leave such facilities to encourage other industries to our city.

I relocated to Tyler as I felt it was a very neat city and would be a good place to live and retire. I was always impressed during my early years of travel driving through uptown and seeing the square and brick streets. I'm not sure if Tyler would make the same impression if the majority of the uptown area is a penal facility.

Ken Segura
Gresham