Courthouse Annex Project plans get unanimous vote by commissioners

About 40 minutes during the county commissioner meeting on Monday was dedicated to discussion of the preliminary plans for the courthouse annex upgrade that will eventually house the county sheriff’s department. Undersheriff Rick Lang was present at the meeting, as was Carla Riley, office manager for the sheriff’s department.

When it was finished, Commissioner Chairman Kreg Murphree (District 1), made a motion to accept the plans so the project could move forward. All commissioners voted in agreement. The project is being paid for using American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding. What should have mostly been a presentation from Architect Josh Schoenborn and Construction Manager Ken Shaw about the design and meeting codes became more a discussion about storage and the wants of courthouse maintenance supervisor Steve Kaeser. The overall discussion stalled when it came to a bathroom, and also an elimination of storage that Kaeser hoped to have.

The annex is the former home of The Duncan Banner and now houses the Election Board Office in the west

half of the building. The front or east half is being renovated for use by the Sheriff’s department. When it is complete, the facility will be secured with areas designated for interviews, storage for files, a server room, and an evidence room. The building is severely outdated by more than 60 years, and Schoenborn has been working with Shaw on the plans.

He’s also been working with the sheriff’s office in order to create a secure, safe and compliant facility. One of those issues of upgrade include eliminating an extremely small bathroom and creating an ADA-compliant bathroom. It then turned into a discussion about storage space Kaeser hoped to have instead as maintenance space.

“It was a little restroom that was tiny at best. I’ve seen closets bigger than that,” Schoenborn said.

The idea was to utilize existing plumbing, removing a wall and creating a bathroom that would meet ADA standards. At some point, Kaeser voiced concern about the deputies working through the night (in regards to the bathroom), but trailed off in his sentence.

“Actually, you have more restrooms than you need in this building – it was tiny, it’s completely out of date, more fixtures than you need. Didn’t make sense to keep it. That’s just an additional cost,” Schoenborn said.

Kaeser said he wanted a dedicated maintenance space in an area that it appears will be used for file storage and evidence lock-up strictly maintained by the Sheriff’s Office.

Commissioner Todd Churchman spoke up on the issues.

“A lot of this was not designated for the sheriff’s department as per a vote of this office months ago. There was a drawing, but I don’t know who or what …”.

Kaeser pointed to the plans that it was the same area.

Churchman continued, “We had some future storage areas on that original drawing we approved.” Kaeser replied that it was all Wayne’s storage (Sheriff Wayne McKinney), and Churchman disagreed, “No, it wasn’t.” Churchman insisted all that storage area was not originally delegated to McKinney’s department.

Schoenborn said with an apology, that he wasn’t aware that the space Kaeser was referring to was allocated to maintenance. Churchman said that it was only dedicated to future storage. Kaeser had also pointed to the drawings and an area he wanted to keep.

Renovation project to make way for future home of Stephens County Sheriff’s Office

“We’ve been working in a little area in the boiler room in the basement, and we fumigate everybody out when we paint cabinets or spray whatever,” he said. Schoenborn said that he was not trying to create an issue but cited a valid concern he had to take into consideration for the future use of the building.

“The reason we took that out – the existing structure you have the concrete walls; even interior; from the standpoint of this becoming the evidence room, it made more sense to block that up, so we didn’t have to secure a chipboard wall. Given the nature and sensitivity of that space being the evidence (room), made more sense. {And} fire safety, it just made a lot of sense in those two issues.”

“There’s a balance of quite a few things there – out of date; out of code; just additional fixtures to replace; and we needed space overhead for the sally port door,” Schoenborn said.

Egress, or limiting egress, was also a main concern, but with careful planning, Schoenborn believes the plans now have that covered. Murphree made the motion to accept the preliminary plans, after Schoenborn and Shaw addressed the need to get things ordered for the construction.

Prior to that vote, Schoenborn said, “I personally would like to see the sheriff’s department see these {plans} one last time to be sure we’re all on the same page.” Security issues were also discussed about the building, including a way to add enhanced security without having to spend additional funding on bulletproof glass.