- On October 17th, the Shafter City Council voted to set aside funding to tear down the security chain link fence that lines the Shafter Modified Community Correctional Facility. The Shafter MCCF has not been operational since October of 2020.
- 23ABC spoke with Shafter City Manager Gabriel Gonzalez and Public Works Director Mike James to get the latest update on where the city is in tearing down the fence, what they plan to do with the fence and the potential future of the main prison buildings.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
In October of 2020, the Shafter Modified Community Correctional Facility was closed and now three years later, the city is working to do something with this property.
Almost three years after the facility closed, the Shafter City Council voted in favor of tearing down the security fence that lines the prison. While it's unclear whats exactly slated to happen with the property, Shafter City Manager Gabriel Gonzalez says it is the first step in bringing up the curb appeal.
"It's no longer a prison or detention center and there's no point in keeping the, the barbed wire and the fence, the high 20-foot plus fence. So, we decided to go ahead and just go in and remove that more for the aesthetic, but then too, like I said, we have a purpose for the repurposing the fence," said Gonzalez.
Though the fence is being torn down, like Gonzalez noted, it's not just going to go to the landfill to be recycled. Shafter Public Works Director Mike James said instead the city plans to repurpose the material.
"The most likely locations for the repurposed fence will be our drainage basins. Unfortunately, we've seen a trend of the chain link fence removed from drainage basins, stolen from drainage basins. So that — the repurposed fence will be used predominantly at those locations," said James.
Now back to the building – what's going to happen with it? Gonzalez and the city aren't quite sure, mainly because it's hard to repurpose a prison
"It's brick, basically brick walls all the way around the different rooms. There's no electrical outlet. There's no conduit for fiber or, you know, internet service, right? So it's just open bays," said Gonzalez. "Trying to repurpose starts getting up in the millions of dollars."
According to Gonzalez this is a when, not an if project, but at the moment the timeline on it is flexible.
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