Ada coroner candidates split on need for new facility

Coroner Dotti Owens, a Democrat seeking her second four-year term, has championed the need for a new facility, but her opponent in the Nov. 6 election, Nikole “Niki” O’Neal, wants to pump the brakes on a new building.

“This is government, this isn’t Rome,” O’Neal said. “Fifteen million dollars for the coroner is absurd.”

O’Neal, a Republican, said as an Ada County taxpayer, that price tag bothers her.

“That project plan is a big ticket,” she said.

There’s no concrete plan for a new facility. However, a needs assessment in the Master Facilities Plan stated new construction of an adequate facility near the intersection of Emerald Street and Curtis Road would cost the county roughly $16 million.

The Master Facilities Plan does not require the county to take action on any of the items listed. It’s meant to map the county’s facility-based needs and the severity of each need.

The current coroner facility is a 27,000-square-foot warehouse, but less than half is occupied by the coroner. Most is used as storage for the Ada County Sheriff’s Office.

Owens said starting over is ultimately more cost-effective than renovation given the issues the current facility faces. She also said it’s cheaper than retrofitting existing construction with up-to-date autopsy suites, freezer and cooler rooms and code-compliant features such as floor drains.

While O’Neal said she hasn’t been in the facility since 2014, she doesn’t think it’s in dire need, and a remodel could mitigate many of the issues.

Owens disagrees with O’Neal’s assessment.

“I have eight months’ worth of work and two different agencies that would tell you different,” she said.

“Here’s the problem, she’s not really been into this facility. I think she toured it once with a class she took,” Owens said. “That was one of the first things we looked at. Can we remodel the current facility? We have several issues with it.”

The Masters Facilities Plan lists the coroner’s facility as the third priority for replacement, behind a new jail and courthouse.

“The existing Morris Hill Morgue facility is insufficient. Approximately 13,500 (square feet) of the building is allocated to Coroner staff, in three separate areas of the original warehouse structure,” according to the plan, prepared by two architecture firms.

The plan went on to recommend building a new coroner facility near the corner of Curtis Road and Emerald Street. The projected cost for the building, if completed by 2025, is almost $16 million.

The report says the coroner’s office should be at least 27,000 to 35,000 square feet to serve the county’s needs for the next two decades. The expected population growth in the county will require construction on a new site to handle the probable uptick in caseload, the report reads.

While the current facility is roughly 26,000 square feet, the majority houses arrest reports and old furniture for the Ada County Sheriff’s office.

If elected, O’Neal said she would explore other cost-effective measures, adding that she’d need to be in the office first to truly assess the needs.

“Is there available infrastructure already existing?” she said.

Owens and O’Neal differ most significantly in their backgrounds. Owens was initially pursuing a legal career and began to work in the Twin Falls County Coroner’s office as a death investigator, so she switched paths.

Since Owens was elected in 2014, the coroner’s office has received dual accreditation by the National Association of Medical Examiners and the International Association of Coroners and Medical Examiners. The Ada County coroner is one of three offices nationwide to have dual accreditation.

O’Neal comes from a pathology background. She said she felt a call to run for coroner after hearing Owens speak at a legislative session and say the electorate was her boss. To O’Neal, that comment implied that the coroner’s office was acting with too much autonomy and not enough transparency.

O’Neal is completing her final semester at Idaho State University for a master of science in pathology, as well as pursuing dual graduate degrees in conflict resolution and health services leadership from Boise State University.

She said she hopes to open the coroner’s office as a pathology residency for medical students if elected.

“To be the leader in particular, that person really should have a medical education of some sort,” O’Neal said.

Owens said she believes that the job requires a death investigation background, noting she has three forensic pathologists on staff.

O’Neal said she would like to explore using vacant buildings, such as closed K-Mart facilities, as a new coroner’s office location — if that is what’s deemed necessary.

O’Neal also disagrees with the architecture firms’ choice of location, saying it’s too busy an area for a secure facility. “You’re talking about a facility building in the middle of Curtis and Emerald,” she said.

Another issue at the heart of the facility debate is how the families whose loved ones have died are able to view deceased relatives.

During a hearing on the Master Facilities Plan earlier this year, a woman whose son was killed in a traffic accident testified that the experience of not being able to see her son until he was transported to a funeral home made her worst nightmare even worse.

Owens said the woman was unable to see her son because the morgue isn’t outfitted with a viewing room, and allowing the public access to the morgue outside of planned tours creates legal issues.

“Let’s say you’re the family member of a homicide victim, and because I’ve let people from the community into that morgue, you’ve just found a loophole for some defense team,” Owens said.

The morgue does have one room outfitted with a viewing window, but it is used for autopsies involving biohazardous materials. Morgue staff told the Idaho Press during a tour that the window is seldom used, but sometimes is used for law enforcement who need to observe an autopsy.

O’Neal said when she visited the morgue in 2014 there was a space for people to view their deceased relatives. She said at the time the space was not labelled as a biohazard autopsy suite.

“I don’t think that this is an inadequacy or a limitation within the facility,” O’Neal said, regarding the lack of space to view remains. Rather, she considers it a leadership issue, and said if she were coroner at the time, the woman who testified would have been able to view her son.

“I just think this is a matter of internal structure,” she said.

While O’Neal disagrees with Owens’ and the county’s assessment on the need for a new facility, she does recognize there are shortcomings that should be addressed.

“I know this is an old warehouse,” she said. Instead, the office should look at what remodeling can be done to address some shortcomings. If a new facility is needed, she believes she could find a space and transfer all equipment for $8 to $10 million.

“I’m excited that it’s a partisan race because I actually really like that we can attribute some of the principles behind partisan values on administering a public agency,” she said.

O’Neal isn’t alone in her crusade against a new coroner’s facility — at least the one currently proposed. She’s received vocal support from Ada County Board of Commissioners candidate Sharon Ullman via social media, who criticized the county for looking to an out-of-state firm to complete a needs assessment of county facilities.

Owens chided O’Neal for assuming the office hadn’t explored all available options for the office.

“That was one of the first things we looked at. Can we remodel the current facility? We have several issues with it,” she said.

One of the other issues with the facility is a matter of security. The facility does not have automatic gates. After several incidents involving trespassers late at night, Owens applied for and received a $90,000 federal grant to install an automatic gate. However, because of the Union Oil Company’s plant across the street, replacing the gates required extensive EPA testing that was too expensive to complete, so Owens had to turn down the grant, she said.

“We had the money for the improvement, we couldn’t use the money for the improvement because of the facility,” Owens said. “We have looked at every single way to make this facility work, and it just will not work.”