Fifteen years after the Santa Rosa County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) contracted with the architecture, engineering, and design firm Hellmuth, Obata, & Kassabaum Inc. (HOK) to redesign the county courthouse, the location may again change. Tuesday, the BOCC held a workshop with a presentation by HOK outlining key issues regarding the downtown Milton site, the location receiving the most “yes” votes in last year’s election. However, by the end of the workshop, commission support for the site waned with only one staunch voice remaining. Will 2016 see another ballot referendum?
Part of HOK’s task was to reduce the cost of the overall project in part by reducing the judicial center’s footprint. Duncan Broyd, HOK senior VP, noted in his presentation the offices of the state attorney, public defender, and guardian ad litem program would remain in their respective location. Note the state attorney and public defender operate out of the Fisher Hamilton building on the corner of Highway 90 and Willing St. Broyd described the building as “very dysfunctional.” SRC Administrator Hunter Walker suggested keeping these offices in their current location in a February 2 letter to the board and later reiterated at the February 9 commission meeting.
During the workshop, Commissioner Lane Lynchard said he had a problem with this cost cutting method being the offices in the Fisher Hamilton building may need relocating.
“What have we given up to save that money? We've given up the collocation of the two offices that use the courthouse more than anybody else, the state attorney and the public defender, and we've given ourselves another problem in that we have to deal with the long term relocation of those functions."
Commission Chairman Don Salter echoed Lynchard saying without those offices in the same building, it would not be a true judicial facility.
“All you’ve basically done is built a courtroom.”
One of the first subjects to come up during the workshop involved the parcels necessary to purchase for a viable spot downtown.
On February 9, Commissioner Jayer Williamson said if the board is going with the downtown Milton site, the cost of the parcels must be discovered. Lynchard, at the May 5 workshop, requested the county attorney enter into negotiations with the parcel owners to procure an option contract on the parcels. “If we can’t get the parcels, and we’re not willing to do eminent domain, then this discussion is moot anyway.”
Commissioner Jayer Williamson’s voice remained strongest for the downtown site, despite the rest of the board’s concerns. He said, “As far as the state’s attorneys go, they’re housed here now and are happy with that from my discussions. They actually have more room here now than they would if they were in the courthouse.”
Taking from Cole’s comments, where he said the county needs to “put the nail in the coffin on downtown,” Williamson said he agrees with Cole.
“To me, that nail is in March, if the people don’t vote for downtown, that’s the nail in that coffin, but 18,000 people, almost, said that the downtown site was the one they prefer…If we don’t put the site up for a vote, we haven’t exhausted every effort.”
Among the members of the public to speak, Rickie Cotton, supervisor over court security, and in his business for 25 years, said, “I've always been one that's said it should remain in the county seat, but down here, it shouldn't stay down here.” The reasons he cited for this opinion were safety for the judges and visitors, He added the size of the court should not be reduced than it already has been.
While the workshop exposed difficulties of the downtown site based on current plans, BOCC support is not entirely lost. Friday, Lynchard said, “I still want to see if downtown is a viable option. That's why I wanted to move forward with trying to see if we were going to be able to acquire the necessary pieces of property around the existing courthouse. If we're able to acquire those, then we can move forward with downtown as the primary option. If we can't, then we try to take another look at the whole process.”
Commissioner Rob Williamson supported the spot during his campaign and since then, but said he didn’t know at the time the county would need to buy property on site. He said, “We've had a referendums put before the voters of SRC to vote on in two different instances where evidently they knew that we would have to acquire property to put the courthouse downtown and that was never addressed.”
On Monday, the board will hold discussion on the item Lynchard asked the county staff to look into: the necessary negotiations for the privately held downtown sites.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: 15 years, still no new courthouse home