Augusta County leaders joined Viewpoints on WVPT this week to talk both sides of the Nov. 8 referendum on the future of the Augusta County Courthouse.
Board Chairman Carolyn Bragg and North River Supervisor Marshall Pattie debated the proposed move of the courthouse, at an estimated cost of $45 million, from its current location in Downtown Staunton to a new facility in Verona adjacent to the Augusta County Government Center.
Bragg was part of the 6-1 majority that voted in May in favor of putting the referendum on the ballot, on the heels of years of work by county leaders to address security, accessibility and space concerns with the Augusta County Circuit Court, General District Court and Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.
Pattie was the lone dissenter on the Board of Supervisors, advocating instead for a less costly plan to renovate the courthouse that has been endorsed by two local citizens’ groups and the Augusta Bar Association.
The cost estimates for a courthouse renovation are closer to the $10 million to $11 million range, according to a 2012 study commissioned by the county, but those figures are based only on the needs at the Augusta County Courthouse related to the Circuit Court.
“The difficulty in this case is one side is talking about renovating the circuit court, and the other side is talking about building three new courts, so we don’t have an honest comparison,” Pattie said on Viewpoints. “We don’t know how much renovation we even have to do to the other courts. And no one in their right mind is talking about spending $59 million in Staunton. You’re taking a 14-acre facility and moving it to a small area. You would never build anything that looks like the plans in Augusta County. I don’t think that’s realistic. I don’t think it’s fair to show the people, and to use public money to print things, that say the only two options are $45 million versus $59 million.”
County leaders have indeed come under fire for suggesting that the only alternative to the $45 million courthouse project in Verona is a $59 million project based in Downtown Staunton.
Bragg defended the side-by-side comparison.
“We were asked to do a comparative of, if you take the space that is included in the Verona plan, and you look at the functions, and you look at the size of your courtrooms and everything that’s included in there, and you put it in downtown Staunton, not necessarily putting the exact building, but something that has equal space, equal courtrooms, equal storage, equal security functions, the estimated cost was the $59 million. The difference is when you’re in Staunton, we’re purchasing property, we’re tearing things down, we’re building things back up, we’re working around a floodplain, so there’s considerations in foundation and structural changes that will have to be done,” Bragg said.
A new facility will best address the needs in terms of security, accessibility and space needs for the local courts, according to Bragg.
“When you look at functionality, and important thing with courtroom security is flow. You need to have a flow pattern for the public, and that needs to be separate from the flow pattern for your staff, for where the judges and staff members are working. And there needs to be a separate flow system for the incarcerated. To keep those separated is a big part of it,” Bragg said. “When you compare a new building to a renovation of an old facility, you have to look at the technology that’s available. If you have an issue at the door, you have only one check-in door now. So we’re having to secure two buildings, we have to have staff for two buildings, everything’s duplicated. You have one staff that’s at the front, and they can shut the buildings down if they want. And the courtrooms themselves, the judges have the ability to shut down the rooms. There are many, many security functions that can be included in a new building versus trying to retrofit into an old building.”
Pattie countered with the contention that while there are clear issues at the Circuit Court building that need to be addressed, “there are no documented problems at the other two courts.”
“It wasn’t until there was momentum on the board that we were going to move the courthouse that other judges and other people started lobbying us, employees started lobbying us, that the General District Court is subpar,” Pattie said. “I’ve walked through it, and I’m not an engineer, I’m not an architect, and it has some deficiencies, but we did invest about a million dollars 10 years ago, and that has been sufficient. It has all the safety upgrades in the last decade, it has some of the improvements that you would want to see. The Circuit Court is deficient. The 18 percent safety rating is terrible. That’s something that I wish we could have addressed earlier.”
The two disagreed on what would happen if voters were to reject the proposed move to Verona. Bragg spelled out a process in which state law would trigger the selection of a panel that would in effect take the final decision-making authority from the hands of county leaders; Pattie contended that legal experts have weighed in to the effect that the county will still have the authority to make final decisions on the fate of renovations.
The two agree that there are needs to be addressed, and that whatever the voters direct county leaders to do, it will cost millions.
An important consideration to Pattie is weighing the costs of renovation to the cost of a new courthouse facility, and what could be done with the millions saved if the county were to decide to go the less costly renovation route.
“When I start thinking about numbers, I think about important numbers. We’ve invested $2 million in economic development over the past five years. That’s created 1,200 jobs and $238 million in new investment in Augusta County,” Pattie said. “I think of money that could be spent on roads. I think of money that could be spent on Internet. So, the money that we spend on this court is invariably going to take away other money for other issues that I’m more passionate about, and I think rise to higher need than the courthouse.
“If we can make the courthouse sufficient, let’s say it’s $20 million, whatever that number may be, maybe it’s $15 million, if we can make it sufficient for the next 20 years, and we can take that money and invest it in our community, I think that’s where we can get our best return on investment.”
Story by Chris Graham
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