Jail renovation contract divides commissioners

Macon-Bibb County commissioners were split in their approval of a local company to do preconstruction work at the Bibb County jail with some questioning whether the company was the right pick for the job.

In a 6-2 vote, the commission hired Warren Associates Inc. as the construction manager-at-risk for renovations at the jail on Oglethorpe Street. The county will pay the company $17,500 from the general fund plus 1.74% of the final cost of the renovations, which will be determined by the company.

Warren Selby Jr. is president and CEO of the company. He also has served as the board chairman for Macon Regional Crimestoppers, a nonprofit that works hand-in-hand with the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office, for the past 25 years.

Commissioners Stanley Stewart and Donice Bryant, who retired from working at the jail, voted against hiring Selby’s company.

After the mayor made the proposal, Bryant said, “We couldn’t find nobody else to build the jail?”

“Couldn’t find anybody else? Well, we found the most qualified person that the sheriff’s selected once it came in, but I mean, there were multiple people who put in for it,” Mayor Lester Miller said. “It went through a committee and this person was the award winner.”

Miller said the committee included Cass Hatcher of River Edge, Clay Murphey of the county’s SPLOST committee and Bibb County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Mike Scarbary.

“You’re going to hate me for this, but I worked at the jail and the structure that was built was not good,” Bryant said. “So if they’re trying to build something else, I don’t know. We need to find somebody else.”

Bryant noted Selby’s company was hired previously for some construction work at the jail and previous discussions about trucking in prefab modules as part of the renovation work led her to believe another company would get the job, “but now I see it’s coming from the same person.

“I have nothing against Warren Selby, I just know that when they put all that money into the jail, the locks were torn up. The structures that were built, they didn’t last,” Bryant said. “Seems like some of the deputies who work down at the jail could have been in on this so that they can kind of say what needs to be done because it’s not working. To keep putting money into the same thing is just like putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound.”

Miller said the prefab modules will come from another company.

“It is what it is,” Miller said, adding Selby’s company has constructed many jails across the state. “This is the process that we have. … We’re ready to move forward.”

“I get it. I get it,” Bryant said. “I just like for the safety of the deputies to be at hand.”

Stewart also voiced concerns.

“We’re talking about building a jail and Warren works with Crimestoppers, which works directly with the sheriff’s department,” Stewart said. “So, is that a conflict of interest?”

Miller said he “could not imagine, in any realm, that that’s a conflict.”

Interim County Attorney Duke Groover said Selby’s association with Crimestoppers was neither an ethical or legal conflict of interest.

“Nothing against Warren,” Stewart said. “I was put in the paper for selling Cherry Blossom trees, even before I was a commissioner, for my friend’s organization, long before I was even a commissioner and they tried to make that a conflict of interest. So I would think obtaining millions of dollars from an organization you work with is somewhat a conflict of interest.”

Miller said, “We can just disagree.”

The jail renovations are estimated to cost about $24 million, but Warren Associates expects to finalize the cost in about 14 months. Selby was not present at the meeting.

In other business, the board approved $1.4 million for an independent contract with Pleasant Hill Landing LP, a subsidiary of the Macon Housing Authority, to build a 64-unit affordable housing development at the corner of Madison and Walnut streets.

Plans for the development call for three, three-story buildings. None of the units will be rented at market rate and all are income-restricted. The project is expected to cost $21 million.

“The vast majority of rents will be less than $1,000,” said Kathleen Mathews, who manages another nonprofit subsidiary of the housing authority called In-Fill Housing.