By Mark Woolsey

An agenda item related to keeping a portion of the Cobb County Adult Detention Center cooled sparked some pointed words at this week’s Board of Commissioners meeting.

Commissioners voted 4-0, with commission chair Lisa Cupid absent, to  ratify county manager Jackie McMorris’ earlier action authorizing emergency procurement, work and payment to MaxAir Mechanical LLC to replace a 500-ton Trane chiller serving the infirmary area of the jail.

Sheriff Craig Owens said in supporting documentation that the prior chiller has been in service since 1987. “ It has reached the end of its serviceable life and is exhibiting significant performance degradation. The unit is now at high risk of imminent failure, which poses a severe threat to the facility’s ability to maintain critical climate control.”

Commissioner Keli Gambrill questioned why six people from the sheriff’s office attended the meeting and said ‘this is where the citizens get upset and don’t feel like the sheriff’s office is being a good steward of the taxpayer dollars when we have emergency issues like this requiring  $1.7 million dollars needing to be spent.”

“This chiller has been in place for 28 years(later corrected to 38), “ she said. “And the previous sheriff or the current sheriff never budgeted for their replacement. Really? Nor has the county, really?”

Commissioner JoAnn Birrell said she recognized the urgency of the pending replacement but had a problem with how it was being done, coming as it did out of the county’s general fund and not as a capital item.

Commissioner Monica Sheffield spoke up for the current sheriff.

“There has been over the years and with this last (sheriff’s) administration in particular, where items were not addressed in a timely fashion. And the longer you delay maintenance the more costly it becomes.”

The current sheriff is addressing issues the prior one didn’t, she said.

Responding to Gambrill, sheriff’s office legal advisor Flynn Broady said that seven sheriff’s office personnel actually attended because of the importance of the issue.

He said the chiller item was pushed from this year’s budget to next year due to financial concerns “and we have pushed this back as far as we could thanks to  MaxAir doing an amazing maintenance job.”

Gambrill said spending by a number of elected officials has been a problem and asked whether the commission should simply dole out one-twelfth of an agency’s annual budget  each month, in order to keep to parameters set earlier. The idea appeared to gain little if any traction.

 A county official said the new chiller will be in place by September and if the current one fails completely before then, a backup cooler will be available.