Inspection cites ‘safety concerns’ with jail kitchen; plans underway for new facility

Time has caught up with the Iowa County Jail’s kitchen facilities.

The State of Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals recently cut back on how often they do inspections for food service establishments to as much as five years apart, but the state still has jail inspections, and the kitchen is included.

At the end of October, the Iowa County Jail had this inspection. Most of it, including records, required documentation and prisoner files, passed easily. In the kitchen, peeling paint had to be scraped from the ceiling, and a photo after it was done needed to be sent to the inspector for proof it was finished.

The required letter sent to those in charge of keeping the jail compliant to code had a paragraph at the end commending the county for starting the process to replace the existing kitchen, calling it “outdated” and “user-unfriendly.” It stated, “The existing kitchen and equipment present health and safety concerns.”

The kitchen is located in the old jail building, which was built around 1890. Its exterior is the soft red brick typical for that time period and used on many of the buildings in town. The brick has been eroded by time and harsh weather.

The kitchen area was the old jail’s “bullpen” and is encased in a steel box, which is part of the reason why the paint peels off the ceiling. There's no place for the moisture to go. The fan to the outside is already rusting, even though the kitchen was moved to the location from what was essentially a closet in the new jail. The structure of the box is also rusting. The kitchen office was formerly the “drunk tank” and still has the steel bar door. The toilet for the facility is the drunk tank toilet with a modified seat in the back, cordoned off by a curtain.

Other problems include room for food storage (refrigerators are in the hallway), and having to take the food outside in a cart and up a hill three times a day, even in winter. The kitchen manager praised the jailer for keeping walkways cleared in winter.

The jail kitchen also serves as the area emergency kitchen which would make meals for the community if there were an emergency such as a tornado. The county supervisors recently approved building a new kitchen which will be sited where the current county engineer's office sits. A satellite office for that department will be built at the property on M Avenue near Interstate 80.