PENSACOLA, Fla. (WKRG) — A commissioner is calling for the old Escambia County Jail in Pensacola to be demolished after describing what he saw inside as “uninhabitable” and “unacceptable.”

“I toured the jail in 2017,” Commissioner Jeff Bergosh said. “I didn’t see the issues I see now.”

Bergosh, who also serves as the Escambia Co. Commission Chairman, couldn’t believe what he saw inside the old Escambia County Jail. He received a tour in late February and posted pictures and his account of what he saw on his blog. He took one picture that shows where some inmates sleep on the floor next to an overflowing toilet.

“Some of what I saw, really unacceptable, uninhabitable,” he said. “You wouldn’t let your dogs sleep there and these are human beings that we’re talking about.”

Other pictures show cracked windows, mold growing on walls, and leaks coming through the ceiling.

Commissioner Bergosh said at this point, he has no plans of approving any money for the old jail.

“It would be akin to putting a band-aid on a severed limb,” Bergosh said. “There are so many issues. There’s mold in the ductwork.”

Escambia County’s daily inmate count is about 1,500. The new jail holds 850 which leaves about 600 inmates at the old building.

“Get the prisoners and the staff out of that old jail, demo it, and forget that it ever existed and move forward,” he said.

Bergosh said, long-term, they want to expand the new jail but short-term, they’re working to move these inmates out of the old building and into other facilities.

“We’ve got a work-release center that will hold 400 people, we’ve got a second work release center that will hold another 150, our prison camp, road camp up in Cantonment holds 200 so I think if you put the pieces together in the right way, we can do it,” he said.

Commissioners will discuss these plans with staff members this Thursday at a Committee of the Whole meeting. Bergosh said he expects the county to act in an urgent manner to move inmates out not within months but within weeks.