Most of the transition has been made to a new facility for law enforcement in Greene County.

The former Midland Power Cooperative building on East Lincoln Way in Jefferson has been renovated into the new Greene County Law Enforcement Center. Greene County Sheriff Jack Williams says the administration, along with all of the deputies and Jefferson Police Department made the move to the new facility, while dispatch and the county jail remain in the other facility on Chestnut Street. Williams talks about the decision not to move dispatch.

“The biggest reason for leaving dispatch where it is now is one, we would have to build a new tower out here (and) two, having the dispatchers in the same building as the jail, they are able to watch the inmates. So they count basically as another jailer, which keeps us from having to hire more jailers to cover what we’re required to have by state code.”  

Some of the improvements to the new building included grades to the electrical system, installing bulletproof glass and security cameras, and securing other areas of the building from the public. Williams adds, they also installed new carpet and repurposed a lot of the furniture that Midland Power had used, to help reduce the cost to the county taxpayers. The new law enforcement center also houses the Jefferson Police Department and Williams explains why he wanted to keep both agencies together under one roof.

“Just works so much better when you have both agencies in the same building. So we can talk about cases that may come from the county or the city, or vice versa. Then if you have people from another town coming into Jefferson or Jefferson people going outside of the city to commit crimes, it just helps so much with solving crimes having us altogether and work together as one team instead of two separate agencies.”    

Williams notes the property was purchased for $600,000 and includes six acres of additional space, which he is hoping to build a new jail. He adds the public can continue to report criminal complaints at the old facility and the new facility is open to the public 8:30am-4:30pm Monday through Friday.