Problem in jail means cleaning house
Ryan Carter
BURBANK -- Burbank Police are setting up shop -- temporarily -- in
Glendale.
Five Burbank Jail inmates were moved to the Glendale Police Department
Monday morning after contractors for the local facility started repairing
its foundation. The jail is in the basement of the Police and Fire
Headquarters at 200 N. Third St. in Burbank.
Since the headquarters was completed in 1998 at a cost of more than
$20 million, moisture has routinely seeped into the concrete jail floor,
city officials said. Local prisoners will be housed in Glendale for the
next two to three weeks while the necessary work is completed.
Officials believe water vapor has risen through the concrete and
become caught between a vinyl-type flooring and the upper surface of the
concrete foundation. It created air bubbles and a damp, sometimes
slippery floor -- leading to safety hazards in the 15,000-square-foot,
70-bed jail, police said.
“We’ve been trying to get this thing done for three years,” Burbank
Capt. Gordon Bowers said. “It just kept getting worse and worse and
worse.”
Workers from the Monterey Park-based Kajima Construction Service, Inc.
are in the process of coating the concrete, the firm’s general manager,
Nori Ohashi, said.
Repairs to the jail -- which are being done under warranty -- are
coming with some inconvenience to officers.
The booking of arrestees will take longer as Burbank Police have to go
to Glendale, Bowers said. Detainees arrested in Burbank will have to
travel to Glendale and then back to Burbank for court appearances.
“We’ve increased our capacity load, but it’s nothing that’s going to
be an endangerment to the community,” Glendale Jail Administrator Juan
Lopez said, adding the Glendale jail has a capacity for 72 inmates with
an average of anywhere from 4 to 17 custodies a day.
Burbank jailers will work at the Glendale facility while local
prisoners are housed there.
Burbank is not being charged for the use of Glendale’s cells, Lopez
said. After the 1994 Northridge earthquake, Burbank took in Glendale
inmates when that city’s jail sustained damage.