By Paige Gurgainers

Plans for construction of the new women’s prison to be located on Penal Farm Road in Minden are currently “locked up.” 

According to Webster Parish Police Jury President Jim Bonsall, this job went out for bid with a budget of $4.6M in mind. The jury received three bids with the lowest coming from a Monroe company at $7.2M. 

The other two bids were submitted at $7.3M and $8.6M. 

“Other than to tell you that the bids were not successful, there really is not anything else to say,” confessed Bonsall.  

Brad Graff with Cothren, Graff & Smoak Engineering said, “We have talked to the low bidder, and we are working to get a schedule of values to tell us what each thing is going to cost.” 

The jury is currently in a stalemate to decide on next steps. “We have to figure out what we are going to do,” Bonsall said. “We have $2M of that Covid money that has to be spent. We are running out of time.” 

Jury members explored options that might cut costs and entertained the idea of possibly applying the money budgeted for the new prison to improve where the women prisoners are currently located – the top level of the courthouse.  

Juror for District 3 Daniel Thomas asked, “If you applied that money to the jail we have now, is there any way we could get that one up to code upstairs with that kind of money? I know nobody wants that, I don’t think, but we are way out of budget.” 

According to Bonsall the problem would not necessarily be getting it up to code, but other issues that stem from the prison being located on the top floor.  

“There are a lot of problems with it being up there. The prisoners sabotage the showers and all kinds of stuff up there that causes problems from the top floor down,” he explained. “If the jail was on the bottom floor, it would be ten times better. There is not a week that goes by that there is not some sort of problem. It is just not a good deal to have them up there because of all the problems it causes with other agencies.” 

Currently there are 60-65 women from Webster and surrounding parishes being held at the courthouse. 

The jury will continue to examine the cost analysis and begin adjusting see if expenses can be reduced to an amount that is affordable, but also keeping safety as the number one priority.  

“We have to make sure our deputies and correction deputies are safe,” said Webster Parish Sheriff Jason Parker. “We are certainly not going to put them in an environment to take a lesser deal where they have more opportunity to get hurt.”