Augusta County taxpayers can spend $44 million to build a new courthouse complex in Verona. Or county taxpayers can partner with taxpayers in Staunton on a $47 million plan that builds around the existing courthouse in Downtown Staunton.
It’s easy to figure out which plan makes the most sense.
Staunton leaders have offered a plan to have the city contribute roughly a quarter of the costs toward efforts to build around the courthouse in Downtown Staunton. The project proposed by the city would include a $7.7 million renovation of the existing Augusta County Courthouse plus a $21 million new building on the site of the old Union Bank across the street.
The Verona project would be new construction that would push the 114-year-old county courthouse in Staunton into an awkward retirement.
Augusta County leaders seem to be leaning toward asking voters to weigh in on the proposals via referendum, and it’s hard to argue against getting a decision this big into the hands of the people who will be asked to foot the bill.
But it might not be necessary to go that route. Augusta County taxpayers save $10 million by going in with Staunton, one, and two, since we all live and work in a region where the boundary lines are only on paper, both county and city taxpayers and residents benefit from the reuse of a historic building in the city and leaving the land that would go to a new courthouse open for another future use.
This is the classic definition of win-win. Why isn’t that already obvious to county leaders?
– Column by Chris Graham
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