Plumbing is the No. 1 headache, he says. We're constantly running into hot-water problems. Boys say they either walk into cold showers or get scalded by water that blisters the skin. A waste-water line in the annex part of the hall disintegrated last year and had to be cut out of the floor before sewage could back up. C.K. Wakefield School, built in 1967 and now used for a dormitory, is never cool enough in the summer nor warm in the winter.
Ceilings drip with condensation from the cooling system.
We've actually had to put buckets under the leaks. Until this year, repairs to the hall went into a pile of maintenance requests for buildings throughout the county, he says. An electrician, plumber and painter dedicated to the Juvenile Hall are speeding things up. For example, tiles with asbestos-adhesive backing were removed from floors in lockdown, where boys were using them to scratch on walls. And new security lights that are less easily broken are in cells.