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Committee considers moving food prep to new jail facility

Apr 26, 2016 8:00 am

Jim Planck is reporting in The Daily Mail the Greene County Legislature's Jail Committee is considering the possibility of relocating the county Department of the Aging's food preparation services to the proposed new county jail in Coxsackie. The department delivers 200 meals a day, and in 2015, a total of nearly 43,000 meals were served countywide. At a recent meeting, the committee discussed the differences between inmate meals and senior meals, state Department of Health regulations for transporting food, the potential cost savings of the move, the advantage of having greater bulk food storage capability and volunteers’ reaction to the proposal. The jail requires serving three meals a day, but the Department of the Aging's main focus is on serving or delivering one hot meal per day, with specialized nutritional needs for many of the seniors, making the feasibility of a shared kitchen improbable. County Human Services Director Terry McGee Ward said there was concern on the part of department cooking staff about working with incarcerated people, and that seniors the agency serves also have concerns. “The seniors have said, ‘I’m not eating the food if an inmate prepares it,” Ward said. Cairo Legislator Harry Lennon said that scenario was not under consideration, and would not happen. He reiterated that bulk food storage capacity is essentially now the focus. Read the full story in The Daily Mail.