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November 20, 2006 (Regular Meeting) Page 167 391 Union Street S., Concord; Ed Hopper of 633 Union Street S., Concord and Debra Arbes of 398 Union Street S., Concord, as set forth in Appendix A. The Clerk to the Board of Commissioners announced that no written statement relating to said matters had been received by the Clerk or the Finance Director. All of the foregoing statements were duly considered by the Board of Commissioners. It was then announced that the public hearing was closed. Exhibit A Donna Ludwig of 212 Union Street N. in Concord stated everyone is pleased to see the progress on the new Jail Annex. When completed, she said it will provide the necessary relief for the overcrowding the jail has experienced for years and will save money by not sending prisoners to other counties. Throughout the last year, she said members of the Citizens for a Better Concord have contributed untold hours and energy in trying to alter, not stop, the project. She said they have always supported a downtown jail, but the site selected for inmate housing is too expensive and challenging to build on. She said the challenges include a steep slope, soil that is riddled with refuse, an unexpected layer of solid rock and most important for the future, the size of the property is too small for future expansion. She reported this expensive site is completely land locked and the lack of room for future expansion is a huge point, one that has been largely overlooked. She reported ChairmanCarruth originally said he was looking fifty years into the future for planning and his original goal has evolved into a facility that will be filled and outdated in as few as fifteen years. She said not only is the Board spending a vast amount of taxpayer money, they are spending it on a project that. has no future and the County will be back in the same position in a few short years. In closing, she stated the County is embarking on the next phase of the project and she urged the Board to reassess the original plans in light of the new information on cost, utility inadequacy and disruption to downtown Concord. After objecting to providing his home address for the record, Brad Barnett of 338 Eastover Drive SE in Concord stated the Board will vote tonight on the contract with Turner Construction for Phase 2 of the jail project. He said supposedly, this was to be a "no risk" contract, meaning the risk was capped for the County and the citizens of Concord. He said it is the other way around. He said this is turning into a no risk for Turner Construction and all the subcontractors to follow. If you read the newspaper, he said you know that you and your fellow citizens are all paying and continue to pay for the series of mistakes the architects, engineers and contractors have made after four years of extensive planning. He said with satellite imaging and laser technology, he said a building was missed by eight to twelve feet that has been there for over 100 years. He asked who is going to wind up paying for mistake. He said the citizens are used to "getting it" from this Board and it will be the citizens of Cabarrus County who will pay for this mistake. If anyone thinks they are going to come up with a cap on this, he said they are sadly mistaken. He said the tunnel miscalculation is thereal reason the tunnel has had to be filled in and dug out again, not because' of rain, faulty soil or the unknown location of utilities. He said the fact that no seismic testing was done to find out about a layer of solid rock would be Site Prep 101. If you do not have to concern yourself with who will be paying once you get in there and find out there is more work to be done, he said there is no sense in going to that step. He said the surrounding neighborhoods know about the sound and disruption to the community and it is time to ask tough questions and to be honest, which is hard;to do. He said someone famous said, "If are in a hole, quit digging." He said it is looking more like an open ended project and smells like the situation in Iraq with Halliburton. Tracy Ballard of 187 Virginia Street SE in Concord said she has followed the progress of the project with special interest. For her families' sake, she said she is glad to have the Annex to reduce the overcrowding and give the deputies a secure enclosed area to transport prisoners. Like many of her neighbors, she said she has fought the bad placement of the big jail housing unit. One reason, she said, is the unit is seventy-seven times the size of the houses surrounding it. She reported exactly one year ago,. citizens asked the City if the old water pipes could handle such a huge facility; at that time, the question was ignored. She said recently, the County plans to spend over a million dollars to replace water pipes and askedwhat is going to happen when the County finally admits the sewer pipes cannot handle the jail as well. She stated the County will go in, tear up the roads, tear up the yards and that is more money the County