Commissioners need $17M levy for mandatory court house expansion

POLSON – Faced with crowded employees, and inmates, Lake County Commissioners will ask taxpayers for a $17 million levy to expand the courthouse-jail complex and build a second office complex, commissioner Bill Barron said.

The commissioners acted on a court-ordered expansion delivered earlier this year by a former judge this year.

Commissioners hope to re-design the Lake County Courthouse to roughly double the Lake County Jail’s size and expand court rooms, storage areas and other facilities to enable court staff and judges to do their jobs more effectively and house more criminals.

Commissioners hope to move all non-court related offices to a newly-constructed annex building located on the property kitty corner to the current courthouse currently owned by the county and runs the block from First Street East and Fifth Avenue East and Fifth Avenue East to Main Street, ending on the south end of the parcel at the existing alleyway, Barron said.

Nothing physical will happen, however, until the Commissioners move through their public-input and bid process, he said.

C.B. McNeil provided commissioners the catalyst for the Lake County Courthouse expansion just before he retired about six months ago when he delivered a court-order demanding Lake County leaders make good on their 12-year-old previous agreement to expand the court house and accommodate its growing staff of judges, personnel and public interaction, Barron said.

The original court house expansion agreement occurred when Lake County added another judge, who originated from the second court district.

“When C.B. McNeil retired, he gave us a court order to build it. And that started the process of moving forward on it,” Barron said.  Since then, we met with the other judges and other people and learned that it’s a huge issue. The court house right now is busting at the seams. There is no room for storage or personnel. It has to be updated electronically. We have jail issues. The jail needs a new kitchen, a medical facility and more cell space.”

Lake County’s last courthouse renovation also cost about $17 million and was completed 8 years ago, Barron said. The Kallispell-based architect created a large addition to the WHICH side of the courthouse, added more office space, two additional court rooms and another justice courtroom.

But even with the major overhaul, Barron said the upgrades were not enough.

Commissioners haven’t forgotten the importance of public input and are developing a committee that will represent court, Sheriff and public interests who can all work together to gather input and help make development of the courthouse expansion successful, he said.

“The needs have grown so much in the last eight years,” Barron said. “We have to start the design process over.”

And the most effective use of money and resources lies in remodeling the existing building and building the annex, Barron said.

“Realistically, from the  research we’ve done so far, it would be more prosperous for us to build an annex from the courthouse, and keep the district court justice (system), its clerks and the jail at the courthouse, and move the commissioners, environmental health, planning, treasurer, clerk of court, superintendent of schools, GIS and elections office. You can build a building like that much cheaper.”

Barron said the commissioners must keep the court system in the current courthouse per an agreement with the City of Polson many years ago.

Early developers of Polson followed state law that demanded it donate the land to the county seat court house, which was originally built in the 1930, he said.

But if the courthouse moved, Polson would be able to reclaim the land, which would leave them flat, he said.

Even though the courthouse’s front edifice is unchanged from its original architecture, the court house itself was added onto three other times, Barron said.

The concrete and brick construction will make its next re-design more difficult, he said.  

“There are technological difficulties that will have to be overcome,” Barron said. “By having a building across the street (erected first) all those offices can be moved out and over there and it will be cheaper and faster to remodel the courthouse because we’re not working around people.”

Barron hopes to get through the permits, public bid and community-interaction process going quickly, so they can start construction in the spring of 2016.

“That’s a real fast timeline but I think we can,” he said.

Both new facilities will feature enhanced security features.

The Lake County Commissioners hope to work with the media, host numerous public meetings, make presentations and seek public comment on the project.

The process should offer some local jobs and area commerce interaction, he said.

“I imagine it will be a two-year construction process for the stand-alone building by itself,” Barron said. “It will be nothing fancy; professional but reasonably fast.”

The mandatory public bidding process is open to development companies across the country but Barron hopes that regardless of who wins the bid, the building process will open a few economic doors.

“If they hire local people there will be more jobs,” he said. “We might sell a couple more cars, some furniture, electronics.”

For now, commissioners are focused on the first steps, which include getting a public-input committee in place.

“It will be about six to eight people. We’ll want someone from the Sheriff’s office, someone from the judge’s offices, someone from the courthouse and some public members,” he said.

Barron will be heading the input committee, and said commissioners are in the process of creating that committee’s mission now.