Fillmore County Law Enforcement Settles Into Upgraded Facility

PRESTON – When Fillmore County Sheriff John DeGeorge walks through the new county law enforcement facility in Preston, he is thrilled that he doesn’t have to dodge people, or even water drops at times, incidents that were once routine.

The larger and watertight building, replacing the former law enforcement building on the same site, is a welcome change for the sheriff. He said that it has led to a more efficient operation, both for those people involved in the jail as well as for officers working outside in the field, to better serve residents of Fillmore County. 

The new jail and Fillmore County Sheriff’s office in Preston sits across the street from the county government building. This is a side view with the main entrance on the right. (Photo by David Phillips)

DeGeorge and his staff moved into the new offices, which are mostly located in remodeled former jail space, in mid-February. The jail, an addition to the old building, started operations last summer.

“It (the old building) was quite literally falling apart,” said DeGeorge. “When it would rain, water would come through the ceiling and sometimes, in dispatch, where we have hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment, we’d have buckets on the floor catching water.”

The facility also lacked enough office space for law enforcement staff on hand, and the space available was laid out poorly.

“Our dispatch center in the old jail was essentially a small hallway where we had two stations set up, and everybody walked through that hallway. It was constant chaos,” said DeGeorge.

New office provides space for training 

The new building has conveniences, such as separate men’s and women’s bathrooms and break rooms, spaces the old building lacked, but also updated amenities that are critical to law enforcement.

DeGeorge was most involved in the process of setting up a training room, a key item for him. The largest room in the old building was a personal office that could hold just a handful of people. That meant his staff, which numbers 45 to 50, had to go off-site for training or meetings.

Fillmore County Sheriff John DeGeorge is all smiles as he is pleased with how the new law enforcement center, which includes a jail and offices, turned out. He had a particular interest in the new training room, where he is standing, as it provides many uses to his staff, which used to go off-site for meetings and training. (Photo by David Phillips)

The new facility houses a large training room that also serves as an emergency operations center (EOC), now mandated by the state. The former EOC, across the street in the basement of the county building, didn’t meet state guidelines for technology and capabilities.

The room can be arranged in various ways. It can be set up as a classroom with tables and chairs plus technology that allows visual displays of materials wirelessly from computers, along with several data and power ports for attendees. It can also be set up for physical activities, such as learning defensive tactics or use of force training, with soft wall and floor mats.

‘Starship Enterprise’ is central to new building

The most impressive room in the new facility is the dispatch and control center for the jail. 

“This is kind of like for us the Starship Enterprise,” said DeGeorge. “Every time I come in here, I’m still amazed.”

It has two identical stations beneath a bank of screens linked to cameras scanning every part of the jail, including each cell. The dispatchers, who also serve as master controllers, are able to control all the lights and door locks throughout the building.

“They can monitor everything from here, not only by camera, but by line of sight as well. So we get much better supervision of inmates and a better handling of what’s going on,” said DeGeorge.

They also control access to an attached sally port, or garage, for transferring arrestees. The port, which has a door on each end so vehicles can drive in and out without backing up, provides additional security with doors being locked during each use. That allows deputies to bring people into the pre-booking room for processing and then the booking room where the jailer will take custody from the deputy. The port is also built to handle ambulances for medical issues.

Fillmore County Sheriff John DeGeorge explains how the evidence room works. The lockers on the right have locks that seal the evidence with restricted access from the other side. (Photo by David Phillips)

The new facility also has: 

• A program room for things such as GED classes, religious activities and drug counseling 
• A secure work release intake room with lockers 
• A padded cell with an automatic light for someone who is combative 
• A medical station for a contracted nurse 
• An evidence intake area with locked lockers that have restricted access and a room off the main entrance in which a deputy can interview someone or an inmate can have a video visit with someone outside the jail

The technology has been updated with docking stations so that deputies, who have mobile computers in their squad cars, can do paperwork and other things inside. 

The building also has an upload station for body cameras as well as the ability to access squad car upload links wirelessly when deputies pull up to the building, allowing the transfer of all their body camera and dash camera footage. 

Lengthy process to get to construction

In 1997 when DeGeorge started, the sheriff at the time was talking to the Fillmore County Board about the need for a new jail. By 2017, the Department of Corrections (DOC) downgraded the jail to a maximum 90-day lockup facility, due to deficiencies, with the threat of a shutdown as the next step, according to DeGeorge.

Among the issues was that the jail was laid out in a linear style with a hallway that had cells on each side so jailers couldn’t see into the cells, preventing direct supervision. There were also other deficiencies, such as a lack of recreation space or programming space for education or religious activities.

After DeGeorge became sheriff in 2018, a jail needs-study was started with a committee made up of community residents, county commissioners and justice system partners, such as himself, someone from the county attorney’s office and someone from probation. A consultant was hired to help structure the study.

After three years, the committee recommended building a 365-day facility. Other options considered were to continue as a 90-day facility or close the jail completely and pay to house people in another county.

New building maximizes staff resources

The committee’s research led to the conclusion that the most expensive option was to close down the jail, not so much due to the daily rate paid to house inmates, but from the costs associated with transportation, including additional vehicles and, most importantly, staff resources, said DeGeorge. 

Chief Deputy Lance Boyum runs the day-to-day operations of the sheriff’s office while the sheriff deals more with the public administrative issues. His office is in the space that DeGeorge once used for his office. (Photo by David Phillips)

Although Fillmore County is small, the sheriff’s office has a unique situation in that it currently contracts with six cities for police protection, a large time commitment, according to DeGeorge. 

Additionally, personnel have other duties, such as investigators who handle felony cases and sergeants who oversee patrol divisions, which means they would be pulled from those duties or the county would need to hire people available 24/7 for transporting prisoners.

Even more importantly, he said, was that Fillmore County would be giving over control of a resource that belongs to the residents. 

“One of the reasons that I think that’s important is every jailer that works in our jail works and lives in Fillmore County,” he said. “The people that are in jail in Fillmore County, most of them are from Fillmore County. They care about not only providing this structure for these people that are in jail, but they care about their well-being. They communicate really well with them, they build rapport with them.”

Another reason against transporting people out of the county, he added, is that many of the people in jail for a short period of time, such as for a DWI, have work release. So, for example, if someone from Ostrander who does construction is being held in Wabasha County, he would have a hard time getting someone to transport him back and forth each day for work.

“So that person’s probably going to lose their job,” DeGeorge said. “Well, they’re going to get out of jail and they’re going to get out of jail unemployed. And what’s the likelihood that they’re going to reoffend versus get back to work and have a productive life?” 

Building will be resource for years

The new jail has 29 beds, compared to 22 in the old jail, as the purpose wasn’t for expansion, but rather to provide more efficiency and resources, explained DeGeorge.

The finances for the project also worked out well, he said, as the cost of using the existing building ended up being about 60 percent of the cost of an entirely new building. 

Although the project cost nearly $12 million, county residents will see little change in their taxes because about $4 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds was used and the remaining amount to bond is about the same as the courthouse remodeling bond that just ended.

Jail Administrator Jamie Fenske led the effort in planning the new jail and office space. “It was an exercise in diplomacy with the DOC and a lot of hard work by Jamie over the years to keep our old jail running in spite of the facility,” said DeGeorge.

Captain Dan Dornink, who  is in charge of investigations, including the recent Madeline Kingsbury case, also provided a lot of input on the design of the building. DeGeorge said he was impressed with his handle on how everything fit together.

“I couldn’t be more excited about this. This is going to last for decades, long after all of us are gone,” said DeGeorge. “You know we’ve always had very good people, we’ve always had good policies and we managed with subpar facilities, but now we have good facilities, too.”

Read more about law enforcement efforts in Fillmore County in our recent story, “Federal Immigration Enforcement Surge Bypasses Fillmore County”.