Prison crumbling: Aged lockup deals with abundance of rodents, facility upkeep issues
HOLLIDAYSBURG — Blair County’s aged prison is dealing with an unprecedented amount of rodents this summer, along with air conditioning and plumbing malfunctions.
It’s also in the middle of a security improvement project that has had problems, leading to installation of a temporary chain-link gate where there used to be a garage door on the Union Street side of the prison’s stone wall. A replacement door is supposed to be coming.
“We do the best we can with what we have,” Warden Abbie Tate told the county prison board during Thursday’s meeting. “And anybody who has spent any amount of time in that prison knows that what we have is crumbling around us, literally.”
The warden told the board she devotes about 50% of her day to maintenance and related matters. The latest, she said, involved three water leaks, including one that caused a portion of a training room ceiling to collapse.
While commissioners await information about potential sites for a new prison, reports about the prison’s maintenance issues have become commonplace.
Inmates, their family members and prison society members have been contacting the media to speak of the prison’s lack of air conditioning, malfunctioning toilets, crowded conditions and rodents.
“This is, by far, the worst year we’ve had with pest control issues,” Tate admitted to the prison board. “And I’ve heard from others in the borough that they’ve had this issue too.”
One inmate who spoke recently to WTAJ-TV claimed that inmates who work in the kitchen are naming the rats. That same inmate also spoke of rodent feces on kitchen trays.
Commissioner Amy Webster, who chaired Thursday’s prison board meeting in the absence of Dave Kessling, said she too has heard of rodents being a bigger issue this summer in the borough. She also offered her appreciation to Tate and others for the efforts they make to work inside the building that was constructed in 1868 and finished in 1869.
“I personally know that it’s very difficult to maintain a building of that age,” Webster said, indicating that her Hollidaysburg house is 15 years older than the prison.
Tate said the county already relies on a local exterminator for monthly visits to the prison, and has the option of asking for more visits.
As for putting out poison or bait traps, the warden said that’s not an option in inmate housing areas.
“We have to be a little more creative,” the warden said. “Nothing is as simple as we’d like it to be.”
Complex replacement
Replacing the garage door on the Union Street side of the prison’s outer stone wall has also proved to be no simple task. During the late June removal of the old door, the warden said the wall seemed to shift, so the project went on hold while engineers were consulted.
“I’ve learned a lot about stone walls this summer,” Tate said.
Without the door, vehicle access to the prison’s sallyport — where sheriff deputies and police drop off and pick up inmates — was moved to the other side of the building. Cautionary cones and yellow tape were set up on the sidewalk next to the chain-link gate.
As for installation of a replacement door, the warden said Thursday that it should wrap up in about two weeks.
Security upgrade
Meanwhile, the prison’s security upgrade — a $1.37 million project that commissioners authorized last year — has encountered issues too.
When addressing the prison board Thursday, former Corrections Officer Nathaniel Port spoke of the project’s interference with the amount of working surveillance cameras. He also spoke of cell doors that wouldn’t open and an intercom system that isn’t fully operational.
While Port resigned July 8 and no longer works inside the prison, he said he remains concerned about those who do work there and described officer safety as being on the back burner.
When then-commissioners Bruce Erb, Laura Burke and Amy Webster approved the contract for the security upgrade, it was described as an all-encompassing project that would add surveillance cameras, monitors, video recording opportunities and door control devices — thereby making the prison safer for those who work there and for the inmates.
While the project was approved at a time when the commissioners were showing interest in a new prison, they also acknowledged the time that building a new prison could take — three to four years — and opted to award the contract to Montgomery Technology Systems LLC of Greenville, Ala.
Age not the issue
Port and Autumn Temple, who described herself as a Blair County taxpayer when speaking Thursday to the prison board, tried to divert the prison’s problems away from the facility’s age.
The original portion of the prison was built in 1868 and completed in 1869.
Temple named Highland Hall, Baker Mansion, the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, First Presbyterian Church, Altoona City Hall and the Mishler Theatre as buildings that are as old or older than the county prison, but operational.
But unlike those buildings that were renovated, the prison wasn’t.
“It’s a 156-year-old crumbling facility that was not maintained,” said Controller A.C. Stickel, who sits on the prison board. “And I’ll just say it publicly: It needs to be replaced.”
Stickel also reported at the prison board meeting that the latest financial report shows that in the first half of 2024, the prison spent 64% of its operating budget. A portion of that overage, he said, is associated with building maintenance and repairs.
Another assessment
Port and Temple also spoke of staffing levels and scheduling issues as contributing to operational concerns that aren’t associated with the age of the facility.
Tate acknowledged that the prison has 78 full-time corrections officers, as well 17 vacant positions. A cadet class of nine starts six weeks of training as of today, and an additional class of cadets is to be set up in August, she told the board.
Bob Dupont, a member of the Blair County and the Pennsylvania Prison Society, also addressed the prison board on Thursday and offered his insight into conditions at the aged jail.
Dupont said he’s been in and out of the county prison during the last 2.5 years and had a chance to observe what is and what is not working.
“There are a number of recurring problems that can only be treated with a Band-Aid approach,” he said. “Things such as pest control, heating, cooling, leaky sinks and toilets and that type of thing, as unsanitary and unsafe as these problems are, I think they can only be resolved with a new facility.”
In the meantime, Dupont encouraged county leaders to address the prison’s most persistent and treatable issue of overcrowded conditions by hiring case managers. They’re the ones, he said, who are in a position to work with and direct inmates toward release on parole and probation.
With an inmate population of nearly 400 at the county prison, Dupont calculated that one out of every five inmates gets a chance within a month to talk with the prison’s only case manager.
If the county increases the amount of case managers, Dupont said, that should be beneficial in lowering the population and reducing tensions among inmates.
For several months, the county has been advertising for applicants to fill two vacant correctional case manager positions.
Tate said the job has attracted some applicants who typically back away after learning of the starting pay — $11.58 an hour based on the county’s current advertisement.
Tate said she anticipates that pay rate will increase starting in 2025. The current rate is based on a labor contract valid through December.
Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 814-946-7456.