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Jail Design Contract Upsets Omaha Firm

By John Nixon

03/26/2014

(KLZA) -- An accusation of a contract violation.

That came Tuesday when tRichardson County Commissioners spent more than an hour discussing the proposed new jail and law enforcement center with Don Prochaska and Steve Riley with Prochaska & Associates of Omaha.

The firm asked to be placed on the agenda after Commissioners last week approved a $3,500 contract with Goldberg Group Architects of St. Joseph, Missouri to proceed with a preliminary design for the jail and law enforcement center.

After about 45 minutes, Don Prochaska finally cut to the chase, saying his firm has sought legal opinion and believe the contract violated the public selection process. Prochaska said he intends to report the situation to a state board.

The Prochaska firm has been coming to Richardson County since 2009 hoping to work with the County on a jail. Prochaska was paid $30,000 to conduct the State Jail Standards Board mandated Needs Assessment Review for a new jail. Prochaska said Richardson County signing a contract with another firm is wrong on a number of levels and that they are disappointed in what they feel was action taken behind their backs.

Commissioner Jim Standerford has voiced his displeasure for months with not getting final number on the cost of the proposed jail and law enforcement center. He said Commissioners have sought a cost estimate for more than a year on what the project cost would be.

At this point Richardson County has not selected a company to oversee the project or in fact at this point have not officially approved moving forward with the project. More discussion is expected.

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