DATE: Friday, October 3, 1997               TAG: 9710030669

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   95 lines

NORFOLK SETTLES JAIL DISPUTE CITY TO SPEND $2.5 MILLION TO AVOID LAWSUIT

The city has agreed to spend an estimated $2.5 million over the next two years to improve safety conditions at the Norfolk City Jail and settle a 4-year-old dispute with the U.S. Justice Department.

As part of the deal, the federal government would drop plans to sue the city for allegedly violating the civil rights of inmates, city officials said Thursday.

The agreement, which would include such improvements as fire sprinkler systems, upgraded showers and toilets, and better air circulation, is expected to end a long-running dispute with the Justice Department that began in 1993 under the administration of former Sheriff David K. Mapp.

Federal inspectors, alerted to alleged safety, health and civil rights violations of inmates, concluded after a two-week inspection in late 1993 that the 37-year-old, eight-story jail was ``grossly overcrowded,'' and was a public-health threat where living conditions were ``offensive to elementary concepts of human decency.''

Since then, city officials said Thursday, much has changed.

The city and current sheriff, Robert McCabe, have taken extensive steps to address the federal complaint, they said, including construction of a $24.9-million jail expansion that added 317 beds and a new regional jail that will open in Portsmouth in April and provide Norfolk with another 250 beds to ease crowding.

McCabe also has taken steps to improve jail maintenance, food and water service, exercise, medical care and discipline, officials said.

That show of good faith, they said, opened the door for the settlement.

``In light of that, the Justice Department concluded there was no need to press the issue,'' Bernard Pishko, the city's chief deputy attorney, said.

Pishko said both parties had reached an agreement on the so-called ``memorandum of understanding'' as part of a mediation process but said Thursday that the document was still being circulated. He was unsure whether it had been signed by Justice Department officials.

A Justice Department representative said later that ``an agreement has not been finalized,'' but could comment no further.

Despite their decision to make improvements, city officials continue to maintain that the deficiencies cited by federal inspectors never violated the constitutional rights of prisoners.

The settlement will allow the city to continue to deny liability, Pishko said.

The city agreed to make the following safety improvements to the old jail:

Installing sprinkler systems on five floors that lack them.

Repairing or replacing showers, toilets, sinks, faulty plumbing and pipes.

Overhauling the heating and air-conditioning system.

Providing more and easier access to emergency doors in cell blocks.

Adding more lighting.

Upgrading existing operation and locking mechanisms on cell doors.

Providing smoke-activated devices that would close corridor doors to prevent the spread of smoke in a fire.

The City Council approved the agreement unanimously and without comment as a last-minute ``add-on'' to a busy agenda at its Tuesday meeting, which included approving a 5-cent-per-pack tax increase on cigarettes and authorizing the city to negotiate with a private firm to collect parking fines.

The $2.5 million needed for the jail safety improvements was unbudgeted in the current 1997-98 budget, officials said. The amount is nearly equal to the funds that the council cut from neighborhood improvements in the current year because of budgetary constraints.

Spreading the cost of the jail upgrades over two years will soften the impact, officials said. The city plans to fund $1 million of the expense in the current year from a self-insurance reserve fund that is set aside to pay for unbudgeted and unexpected costs arising from legal and medical settlements.

There is $3.8 million in the fund, officials said.

Pishko said the city plans to ask Virginia officials to cover the remaining $1.5 million of improvements. He said Thursday that the city has not yet approached the state about providing funds.

``We are of the opinion that the state should help more with the cost of operating jails,'' Pishko said. ``It's a lot like education - it's something every locality has got to have, but what can you do when the locality has many other things that it must fund? We're going to go with our hat in hand to ask them to pay.''

If the state refuses, Pishko said, the city may issue bonds or draw money from the general fund to pay the remainder.

Pishko called the resolution of differences with the Justice Department a ``happy settlement,'' even though not everyone in the city was excited about it. He noted, for example, that one of the most expensive improvements - adding fire sprinklers - had only recently become a state requirement in hotels taller than three stories.

``We're not dealing with an outrageous health violation,'' Pishko said. ``This is something you wouldn't have gotten in hotels as a right.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Motoya Nakamura/The Virginian-Pilot

[Inside shots of the jail]

Color photo by Tamara Voninski/The Virginia-Pilot

[Exterior shot of construction at the city jail] KEYWORDS: NORFOLK JAIL LAWSUIT SETTLEMENT

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