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Woodyard discusses mental hygiene calls

PARKERSBURG — Wood County Sheriff Rick Woodyard is calling for a change in how mental hygiene cases are handled so he will be able to keep more of his deputies on the road.

Woodyard talked with Wood County Commissioners Robert Tebay and Jimmy Colombo during their regular meeting Monday. Commission President Blair Couch was absent.

”I didn’t realize how bad it really was,” Woodyard said.

Many of the cases they have to deal with do not meet the criteria of what a true mental hygiene order should do, Woodyard said adding it was relatively easy to get one.

Wood County Prosecutor Pat Lefebure said the system is abused.

Woodyard said they have talked with state lawmakers about changing some of the guidelines so not so much of the deputy’s time is spent there. They are also informing judges about some of the abuses to the system.

”We can’t be playing games,” Colombo said.

Under the current system, people can be picked up and held for several hours until an evaluation is done with that person having to have a deputy present to watch them.

There are times when that needs to be done with people who are a danger to themselves or others and trained law-enforcement should do that, but there has to be a point when the mental health people have to take over.

The sheriff said a lot of the abuse comes from a system that needs to be updated and fixed.

Woodyard is looking at reworking some of the positions within the department filled by civilians to be able to do transports.

”We are looking to do that to take the load off the law-enforcement side,” he said. ”We are doing three mental hygiene calls a day.”

The department has five deputy positions open and two civilian positions open that he is trying to fill. There has been talk about taking some of the officers they have in local schools out to fill some of the open positions.

They have expanded the home confinement program to try to cut down on the number of people put in the regional jail system. They have 65 people currently on the program, up from 35 this time last year.

”I think it is really important to keep the deputies on the road doing law-enforcement,” Woodyard said.

In other business, Woodyard said the work at the new Wood County 911 Center, at the intersection of I-77 and US 50, is continuing ahead of schedule.

Officials believe construction work on the center, located in the old Suddenlink call center building, should be done by Memorial Day 2023 with additional time needed to get many of the internal systems operational.

There was additional work to install cables into the main call center as well as other work to get other communications equipment installed.

Interior work to fortify the building is getting done. A number of ballisting sheeting has been installed. Each sheet is 400 pounds each and is being used to secure certain parts of the building.

”It is a pretty hefty building,” Woodyard said. ”It is going to be nice.”

The building will have a large storage space to store the county’s voting machines and other records in a more secure location as well as ways for county officials to access it when needed.

”It will be a big space for storage,” Woodyard said.

The building’s fire suppression system is up to code, with new piping installed to upgrade and expand the existing system. Woodyard said he believes it will be a combination of a wet and dry fire suppression system.

A generator had to be relocated at the site and have a bigger gas tank installed to serve it.

Work is being done to make sure the building will have adequate lines coming in to handle their call volume now, and anticipated volumes into the future, as well as other computer connections.

The center averages 8,000-10,000 calls a month.

Woodyard wants everything ready so when the time comes to open the new center, the employees will be able to go into the new building and be able to do their jobs without missing a beat.

They currently have six dispatchers in training.

”It is going to be a nice building. It will be built for the future,” Woodyard said. ”If we take care of that building and do the right thing, it will be here for a long time.”

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