Public hearing set on $28 million bond issuance

By DAN KEGLEY/Staff

Smyth County supervisors will hold a public hearing Nov. 12 on a proposed $28 million bond issuance to pay for courthouse renovations and construction of a new building to house the courts during the renovations and county offices when courts are back in the courthouse, a parking garage and an emergency communications system.
The hearing will begin at 5 p.m. in the board room in the county office building on Bagley Circle.
A resolution under consideration for adoption by the supervisors said the general obligation public improvement bonds would mature “at such time or times not exceeding 40 years from their dates…”
Efforts to contact supervisors chairman Charlie Clark and Acting County Administrator Mike Carter for this story were unsuccessful.
In February 2003, Moseley Architects, retained to perform a courthouse space needs analysis told the supervisors the courthouse is inadequate for the county legal system’s current needs. They already knew the courthouse’s moisture problems have led to potential damage of irreplaceable public records. Judges from the Circuit, General District, and Juvenile & Domestic Relations courts all told the supervisors the building’s lack of security endangers court personnel and citizens involved in the legal process.
The space and security problems, said Circuit Court Judge C. Randall Lowe, “are not 20 years from now, but problems we have now. We’re asking you to please address those immediate needs.”
In September 2004 Smyth County Circuit Court Judges C. Randall Lowe and Larry B. Kirksey wrote a letter board of supervisors “requesting that the Board advise within 60 days a plan to address the security and space needs” in the courthouse.
In November 2004, the supervisors received a new design from Moore that would meet the immediate needs for security and space in the courthouse, but would not answer long-term projected needs for even more space and a fourth courtroom to handle growing caseloads.
A sense of urgency has pervaded the debate from at least 2004 when now-deceased Smyth County Circuit Court Clerk Jimmy Warren said if localities fail to meet requirements for security of people, documents and equipment, and for space and parking, judges can issue an Order of Mandamus, forcing the locality to do whatever the judges believe need done.
The development of courthouse plans has been veiled in secrecy county leaders say they have to maintain because of the judges’ orders against the county they view as litigious.
In April of this year, Architect Jay Moore presented the company’s response to the most recent letter from the attorney of the state judges whose directives the county leaders are following to arrive at a mutually agreeable plan to build an enlarged and renovated courthouse.
This version is courts-only. Absent from it are the constitutional treasurer, commissioner of revenue, and commonwealth’s attorney offices.
In the plan, the ground floor is used by Juvenile and Domestic Relations Courtrooms and associated offices. The first floor, now entered from between the columns at the front, houses the circuit court and clerk, and the second is taken by general district court. Judges chambers and segregated public and non-public areas are included in all three levels.
An extension to the north features a public area with plantings on what is actually a roof over the J&DR section, a space that alternately could be enclosed within the courthouse.
The plan features a two-van sally port and a secured public entrance at the northeast corner.
The county is also considering building a court building to become county offices after courthouse renovations are complete on a five-acre parcel on land known as the old Hull Farm lying southeast of Interstate 81 exit 44, owned by Robert Battaglia and Larry Stevenson according to Smyth County tax maps and a letter to the supervisors from Bill Rush of Custom Solutions LLC, a real estate firm in Chilhowie representing the men.
The county could swap sewer service for the acreage, courthouse committee chairman Charlie Clark said last year.
The county has come under fire for apparently not considering a number of vacant downtown buildings. Former County Administrator Ed Whitmore said last year, “We have a file on each of those that shows why they wouldn’t work.”
Whitmore said it would not be feasible to spend the money required to upgrade them to court suitability and install the shielded wiring needed to connect them to the secure state court system. Additionally, most of the downtown sites have no parking, he said.
Supervisors Todd Dishner said last year if the county invests to upgrade a building, then moves out of it at completion of the courthouse, the county would in effect lose that investment.
County Engineer Scott Simpson said the county can realize some cost savings by building a new administration facility. By building a small-footprint courthouse officials said can be accomplished by moving courts out of the building during renovations, the county will save money in its construction as well as the cost of developing requisite parking, according to Simpson.
This summer Marion’s town council and county supervisors officials committed build a two-level parking deck. The town would pay either $500,000 toward construction of a parking deck or half the cost if construction costs below $1.5 million.
A new emergency communications system would replace the aging and frequently repaired system that never adequately linked responders across the county’s mountainous terrain.