Safety of The Florence County Complex In Question

Lack of Security, no sprinklers, over crowding are just a few of the issues with the County Complex on South Irby Street in Florence.  This is all beyond the lack of esthetic value it provides to the downtown area.  "That thing is an eyesore"  says one potential transplant to the magic city as he sees the Complex for the first time.

Florence County Council was given an update by an outside consulting team on Thursday and the outlook is grim.   There are serious safety hazards within the County-Complex.  "The facilities in this building are among the most overcrowded and the most operationally ineffective that we have seen in the United States," said Michael Thomas, Justice Planning Associates.  He went on to say that "What you need to do in this building is renovate it fairly substantially. Your mechanical systems are at the end of their useful life and your electrical system is past the end of its useful life."  Thomas' firm, Justice Planning Associates, rated the building 3.3 out of 10 for safety and effectiveness. Thomas explained to council that there is no fire suppression system in this building.  It should be noted that when Thomas explained the lack of fire suppression, council members looked up and finally noticed there was no sprinkler system over head. Thomas's firm gave court room spacing and security the lowest rating in the survey, calling it "inappropriate". The study also revealed that the space used for court proceedings is not large enough and the lack of security to handle the volume of traffic that uses those spaces is an even bigger issue.

Council members agree there is simply not enough money in the county budget to fix these problems that exist. Based on early estimates, it would take 17 million dollars to bring the 11-story eyesore building back up to par. When asked for his thoughts on the complex and the evaluation done by Justice Planning Associates,  Councilman Waymond Mumford responded "I've always been somewhat concerned about the security in this building; it's something that really needs to be updated – but it going to take funding to get there,"     The City of Florence just moved out of the complex in June to their nice new facility, City Center, on Evans street. Council members said since the city is out,  they will be shifting around some of the  county departments to try and work out the overcrowding issue but as for the other issues they will just have to wait until money is available. 

My issue with this whole matter is simply this:   Anyone with any  facilities management or common sense could have walked through this building and told council these exact problems existed.   I feel certain many have done so in the past.  Instead of using the money, spent on consultants, to fix problems that exist, our county council members spent our tax money hire a consulting company to come in to tell them the exact same things that many have told them in the past. County Council members should listen to their employees and look with their own eyes rather than waste our tax money on a consulting firm.  The problems that exist have existed for a long time and rather than fixing things along and along, while times were good and they had money,  they have let this building fall into complete disarray.