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b"Cost overruns and delays at the new jail county continue, with exasperation on all sides at inaccurate estimates, delays at the state level, a continuing lack of financial information, and fears that the county will be unable to meet its obligations. \\n\\nThe new estimated date to complete construction, which has not yet begun, is May 2025, rather than March 2024, which was the originally anticipated milestone. The new cost estimate is more than ten million dollars higher than the original, with an estimated funding shortfall of $1.4 million. \\n\\nSupervisor Dan Gjerde expressed frustration over the estimates provided by contractor Nacht and Lewis, the architecture firm that\\u2019s been working on the design phase of the project. \\n\\n\\u201cWe may be about one year behind schedule at this point, but now the costs are estimated by Nacht and Lewis as being 42% higher than originally estimated,\\u201d he calculated. \\u201cI don\\u2019t know if Nacht and Lewis has any insurance policy or anything. To what extent do they validate, when they\\u2019re hired by customers, that they are providing agencies with a good estimate when agencies submit a grant application, because for example, had we known when we applied that the costs were going to be substantially higher, we could have asked for a grant form the state for more than $25 million. We asked for $25 million because Nacht and Lewis said the project would cost $26 million, and it required a minimal county match. At this point, the county match has ballooned from one million to I think it\\u2019s about $12 million at this point or more. So I really wonder about the ethical practices of Nacht and Lewis, if they are that far off the mark\\u2026and just finally, ultimately, I feel like the county needs to make a full court press to go back to the state and say, hey, this is your program. You\\u2019re realigning people from state prisons into county jails. It\\u2019s in the best interests of the public that we do that, but it\\u2019s not bearable for a small rural poor county like Mendocino to pay so much of the share of this project that was originally a state project.\\u201d\\n\\nWith the books not yet closed for the last fiscal year, Supervisor Glenn McGourty, who is the new chair this year, tried to get an idea of how the county will pay for its share of the project. That information is still not available, according to CEO Darcie Antle.\\n \\n\\u201cAny thoughts about how we\\u2019re going to afford this?\\u201d he asked. Antle told him she hopes the fiscal year 22/23 books will be closed soon, at which point the executive office will have an estimate of the carry-forward. There will be a budget workshop for the upcoming fiscal year at the next regular Board of Supervisors meeting on January 24. \\u201cThis is a real horror show of signing up for something that you don\\u2019t really know the price for, and it keeps escalating, making it very, very difficult for us to meet all of the other things that we want to do for the county,\\u201d McGourty noted.\\n\\nEric Fadness, of Nacht and Lewis, said the delays and overruns are due to factors that are beyond his control. He also told the board that the limit on the amount the county could have applied for to build the jail was $25 million. \\u201cAny additional costs to the project would have to come out of county cash match,\\u201d he said. \\u201cWe do not control the construction market. We do our best to estimate the ongoing escalation in costs, but we don\\u2019t have a crystal ball to predict the escalation that\\u2019s occurring now, with inflation, supply chain delays\\u2026I\\u2019d also like to point out that we don\\u2019t control the state\\u2019s process. And the delays to the project have largely been due to state delays in approving the ground lease for the project. That took well over a year of processing for that to occur. And we were held up in our time frames to complete the construction documents while those processes were occurring. And then recently, with the state fire marshal's office. Many other counties are experiencing delays with state fire marshall review and approval. You\\u2019re not alone. But we can\\u2019t control that process.That is a process that only the state fire marshall has control of\\u2026Unfortunately, where we\\u2019re at today, the costs have increased significantly, mainly because of the delays, and because of the current market.\\u201d \\n\\nSheriff Matt Kendall was blunt about his assessment of the state\\u2019s responsibility for the jail, emphasizing that many inmates who used to be housed in state prisons are now in county facilities.\\n\\n\\u201cThe state of California is beginning to, for lack of better terms, beginning to step away from many of the responsibilities that they had in the past,\\u201d he opined. \\u201cI think they are working on some unrealistic numbers. We are seeing a reduction in the state prison population that is probably, based on what I can see, very reliant on some of the covid precautions that were taken, and those numbers are going to jump back up. And when that occurs, I think that we've all got to be ready\\u2026The state has stepped away from some of their standard responsibilities. And if they\\u2019re going to step away from them, then they need to make whole the people who are going to be doing some of these things.\\u201d"