Benton commissioners threaten to sue Sheriff Hatcher over locker room dispute

The Benton County commissioners will have a door into a sheriff’s department locker room even if they have to sue the sheriff to do it.

The commissioners unanimously approved a resolution during a special meeting on Thursday allowing them to take control of the largest locker room in the sheriff’s office and put in a new door from the jail.

If the sheriff tries to stop them, it also gives County Administrator Jerrod MacPherson the authority to ask the Benton County prosecutor to start legal action.

The move is a temporary measure using the emergency powers granted under Gov. Jay Inslee’s declaration of emergency, the commissioners said.

They promised to revisit the locker room issue when the coronavirus emergency is over.

“We are the landlords,” Commissioner Shon Small said. “We are trying to do what is in the best interests of all of the employees.”

Sheriff Jerry Hatcher wasn’t at the special meeting and may be out of town, commissioners said. He also could not be reached by the Herald.

For five months, county corrections officers have had no access to the deputies’ locker rooms at the Benton County Justice Center in Kennewick to change before or after their shifts.

Hatcher locked them out when the county commission took over the jail in October.

The largest locker room has no door directly into the jail, requiring anyone using it to go through the sheriff’s department.

Hatcher stopped access early on in the takeover because he said he was concerned about allowing employees he didn’t hire, train or have oversight of to be inside the sheriff’s office.

The move required corrections officers to change at home or in the parking lot, but with concerns about coronavirus and COVID-19, the county commissioners say officers should be allowed to change clothes before heading home.

Department of Corrections Chief Scott Souza said they have done as much as they can to limit potential exposure to the virus.

Each employee that enters the building is checked for symptoms, including a fever.

They also are disinfecting, sending work crews home, releasing inmates on work release, closing the lobby and cutting down on the number of people booked into the jail.

In total, they’ve cut down the jail population by 250 inmates, Souza said. The jail has 700 beds.

Since the measures took place some corrections officers have been able to use the shower inside the work release facility, but it’s not big enough to be a solution.

Already, one inmate is in quarantine because he had flu-like symptoms, and medical staff has been waiting for a test kit for him. As of last week, they were still waiting.

Even with the changes, corrections employees are still booking five and 10 people each day.

A long negotiation

County staff and Sheriff Hatcher have been in talks about locker room access since December.

A draft agreement was put place and designs were made, but progress foundered as the sheriff added additional demands, said Public Works Manager Robert Blain.

Commissioner Jerome Delvin said Blain told him that Hatcher planned to use the locker room as a “bargaining chip.”

As the public health emergency escalated, Souza emailed Hatcher asking him for access into the locker rooms, but didn’t get a response.

Commissioners sent a letter to Hatcher on Tuesday saying they planned to put in a door, but when county employees went down there to look, they were escorted out by sheriff’s office employees.

This brought them to Thursday’s meeting and their emergency resolution. Small said they wanted to contain any possible contamination to as small of an area as possible.

“Secondly, we are looking out for officer safety,” Small said. “We want to make sure we minimize any threat to anyone.”

County staff plans to have a hallway and door put in within a week, Blain said. They haven’t determined how much of the work will be done by county workers or how much will be done by outside contractors.

Struggle over the jail

This is the latest battle between the commissioners and the sheriff to move into the public sphere since the commissioners decided 2-1 to take control of the 700-plus bed facility.

Citing concerns about how the jail was being run, the commissioners took control the jail in October. They created the Department of Corrections and put Souza, a former jail commander, back in charge of the facility as the chief of corrections, reporting to the commissioners.

Since then, the commissioners and Hatcher have clashed over many issues.

The commissioners said they have a “duty to oversee county property,” and in light of the public health emergency are going to put in the door in immediately at the spot they previously agreed on.

The locker rooms were built to accommodate sheriff’s deputies and the corrections officers, and can easily be shared, the commissioners said.

“While we understand your concerns regarding who has access to the sheriff’s office and have every intention of keeping these areas as secure as possible,” the commissioners said.

This story was originally published April 2, 2020 at 5:55 PM.