Two judges and the chief juvenile officer in the local judicial circuit closed the 30-year-old juvenile detention center in downtown Cape Girardeau after a fire in a cell raised safety concerns.

Now, the county commission says it may improve the center and reopen it rather than build a new one. At its meeting in Jackson Thursday, the commission ordered architect Tom Holshouser of Cape Girardeau to halt work on plans for the new center.

Larry Bock, 1st District commissioner, said, "Basically, it is on hold right now."

The center was closed after Michael Morgan, Cape Girardeau fire marshal, cited safety problems. Morgan said manually operated bolts and locks on the cells need to be replaced with electronic locks. The locks would make it safer for juvenile offenders and officers in case of fire, he said.

A 16-year-old girl started the Aug. 14 fire in her cell by igniting a pair of pants on her bed with a smuggled-in cigarette lighter.

County commissioners said Thursday they may sell the nine-acre site for the new center. The commission last year paid $275,000 for the property at the end of Progress Street in an industrial area west of South Kingshighway.

Cells have been empty

The commission said it isn't ready to spend millions of dollars on a new center when at least half the cells at the existing center sat empty in recent months. The detention center on Merriwether Street can hold eight to 10 juveniles but in recent months has housed only three to four a day, commissioners said.

The commissioners' refusal to approve plans for a new juvenile center after more than three years of planning has put them at odds with the circuit judges and Randy Rhodes, chief juvenile officer for the 32nd Judicial Circuit.

Rhodes and the judges have said Cape Girardeau's brick and block detention center is too small, crammed full of cells, offices, a day room and a classroom.

The closing of the existing center has drawn new attention to the aging facility.

John Grimm, presiding circuit judge, said he and Peter Statler, the associate circuit judge who presides over juvenile court, and Rhodes made the decision after meeting with the fire marshal.

Bock questioned the move. "I feel the center is just as safe now as it was prior to the fire," he said.

With the closing of the center, juveniles are being held in detention centers in Mississippi and St. Francois counties, Grimm said.

Offenders boarded out

Cape Girardeau County's juvenile offenders are being housed in the Mississippi County detention center at Charleston. At $60 a day, the county in less than a month already has spent nearly $4,000 to house juveniles there, said county auditor H. Weldon Macke.

In an Aug. 20 letter to Rhodes, the city fire marshal recommended replacing the manual bolts on cell doors with electronic locks and using mattress pads and pillows made of a fire- retardant material.

Morgan wrote that the girl who started the fire and other juveniles housed at the center at the time could have died from smoke inhalation if it weren't for the quick action of juvenile officers.

"The smoke situation from even the small fire on the mattress pad and pillow was enough to fill the holding facility and hallway with black, acrid smoke," Morgan wrote.

Rhodes has lobbied for years for a new center that could house 32 juveniles. But Joe Gambill, 2nd District county commissioner, said it makes little sense to build such a spacious center.

Initial plans called for a $4 million, 40,000-square-foot building that also would replace the juvenile offices at Common Pleas Courthouse Annex in Cape Girardeau. But commissioners said the county couldn't afford the cost. The project then was scaled back to around $3 million. Under that plan, the building would have had 16 cells with room to construct another eight in the future.

Still, the county commission didn't buy it. "We see no need for the number of beds he wants. That's why we've held up the project," said Gambill.

Rhodes couldn't be reached for comment Thursday.

Even at $3 million, county officials worry that the cost of retiring bonds and operating expenses would exceed the nearly $366,000 the county already spends annually on the juvenile department.

Since 1999, the state has paid the salaries of juvenile officers in Missouri. Counties pay the operating expenses.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123