HOLLIDAYSBURG — The Blair County Prison Society is offering recommendations on designing a new county prison, based on the expertise of its members who have been making monthly visits for more than 25 years.

“It’s so much easier to change things earlier in the process, when ideas are in the conceptual stage, instead of when the project is farther along,” prison society member Ernest Fuller said Thursday morning after addressing the county prison board.

Commissioners Chairman Dave Kessling, who chairs the prison board, thanked Fuller for the comments and spoke of a potential opportunity for the prison society and others to be involved in the process, after the release of a forthcoming feasibility study.

That study, which Kessling said is anticipated to be ready for release this month, is supposed to provide a framework for building a new prison and site recommendations — with decisions that will have to be made.

“We’re not building this prison just for today,” Kessling said. “We’re building this for 20 to 30 years down the road … So we want to make sure we get it right.”

Kessling, who took office a year ago, acknowledged that the prison project has moved slower than he anticipated, partly because of less-than cooperative land owners.

“It’s been a year because no one wants a prison in their backyard,” he said.

Commissioners also spoke, in 2024, of considering and abandoning potential sites because of environmental concerns and expensive land development costs.

The forthcoming study is expected to recommend sites in Allegheny and Blair townships, including one that Kessling said will involve acquiring land from two property owners and is currently viewed as most favorable.

Fuller, in addressing the county prison board, spoke of a desire to see the county build a prison that’s safe for the inmates and staff and cost-efficient for the county’s taxpayers.

“Our chapter of the prison society has been visiting the Blair County Prison monthly for over 25 years,” Fuller said. “We have observed many problems with the current prison and very much support building a modern facility to house the county’s prisoners.”

Fuller said many of the prison’s problems are associated with the age of the facility — originally built between 1868 and 1869, with its largest expansion in 1983. He referenced the building’s lack of space, multi-story levels, an inadequate heating, ventilating and air conditioning system and operational fixtures that are difficult and costly to repair.

“The best way to solve many of these problems,” Fuller said, “is to build a single-story new prison in a modular fashion with self-sufficient, modestly sized (housing) blocks of 30 to 50 inmates that have their own spaces for all services.”

The services, he said, require meeting rooms for 10 to 15 inmates, an attorney/client room, recreational space, case manager offices and a separate room for inmate lockers.

He also proposed that the prison include one or two larger general use meeting rooms for 25 to 40 people where staff meetings, prison board meetings, parole and probation meetings and educational and training presentations could be made.

To address an increase of inmates with mental health conditions, Fuller recommended designating at least two areas for them, with designated space for individual and group therapy sessions. He also proposed observation areas for mentally ill inmates to end the prison’s practice of putting a mentally ill inmate into a “lockup” cell.

“These inmates need treatment and continual observation,” Fuller said. “They should be housed in special cells with TV monitors.”

Another recommendation, which Fuller described as essential, would be for the new prison to have a designated infirmary with four to six beds for inmates with injuries or diseases. The availability of nasal oxygen, he added, would be a big plus and help offset the expense associated with inmate hospitalizations.

The recommendations, as Fuller also outlined in a letter submitted to Kessling, also suggested that the new prison’s kitchen be large enough so all inmates get their meals in a timely manner. The prison should also have enough space for indoor and outdoor recreation so inmate recreation doesn’t have to be scheduled at night.

Efforts toward building a county prison started to develop in March 2020, when Controller A.C. Stickel, who chaired the prison board at that time, appointed a four-member committee to take the lead in exploring a future for the aged prison.

That committee included Stickel, Commissioner Amy Webster, Warden Abbie Tate and then-President Judge Elizabeth Doyle. While the committee’s efforts were hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic, it reported visiting Franklin County’s prison and working with L. Robert Kimball of Ebensburg, which did a no-cost study for the county that recommended building a new prison or making major renovations on the current site, with both projected to cost millions.

In August 2022, then-commissioners Webster, Bruce Erb and Laura Burke welcomed news from state Sen. Judy Ward, who reported that the state Department of Community and Economic Development had allocated $185,000 for Blair County’s prison feasibility study. Six months earlier, commissioners had applied for a state grant with no guarantee of it being awarded.