Robbinsville – Graham County’s legislative representatives will be requesting $30 million from the state to pay for a centralized justice center to replace its aging downtown courthouse.
Graham County Manager Jason Marino updated the Board of Commissioners about the project at the board’s meeting on July 19.
The county has already obtained a $5 million state grant to kickstart planning, but that’s well short of the estimated $20 million the project would cost in today’s construction market.
N.C. Rep. Karl Gillespie (R-Macon) said the request will be made at next year’s legislative session.
An architectural rendering of a generic justice center positioned at the project site off of West Fort Hill Road has drawn criticism from many Graham County residents who believe the modern architecture depicted does not fit with Graham County aesthetics.
“That’s not what it’s going to look like, is it?” Commissioner Lynn Cody asked during the meeting.
“I’m sure we’ll get options,” Marino replied.
Marino said the goal is to make a building that is affordable and have an architectural style appropriate for this area.
The project would move local courts, administrative offices, the Sheriff’s Department and the Graham County Jail, at an estimated cost of around $20 million, only $5 million of which has been secured. The target date for completion of the facility is fall 2025.
The project comes as the result of a 2017 order from Superior Court Judge William Coward decrying substandard conditions at the current Graham County Courthouse, a facility built in 1942 that includes one courtroom, cramped administrative offices, substandard jury accommodations and an overcrowded and dilapidated county jail. Further, the building is not Americans With Disabilities Act-compliant.
The Sheriff’s Department is located in a 4,500-square-foot, two-level former bank building off Rodney Orr Bypass where all patrol officers share a single workstation and the building does not accommodate evidence storage or provide a private area for interviewing suspects or witnesses. Like the courthouse, it too does not comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act.
There is no timeline for the project, although Marino has issued a request for qualifications for prospective architectural and engineering services that provides a completion date of fall 2025.
The program is based on current best practice models for judicial space needs, according to an executive summary posted on the county’s website. The building as envisioned would be a 58,000-square-foot facility that combines Superior and District courts, clerk of court, magistrate, district attorney, Juvenile Court, probation, Sheriff’s Department and the jail.
The project would leave the existing courthouse vacant.
The building is registered in the National Register of Historic Places and is located on the same site as the original courthouse built in 1872.
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ν Graham County representatives are scheduled to appear at Nantahala and Pisgah National Forest Plan Revision objection resolution meetings on Aug. 2 and 3. The county has objected to a presumptive favorite called Alternative E.
Graham County Government is included among 872 “eligible objectors” to proposed plans that will guide resource management in the Nantahala and Pisgah national forests for the next 20 years.
Four choices were proposed – a status quo plan, plans that favor timber harvest or recreation, and a fourth that blends timber harvest and recreation. Following a series of public comment periods during which Graham County Government favored the plan most favorable to timber harvesting, the U.S. Forest Service came up with a fifth alternative, called Alternative E, which combines elements of other plans.
The county’s comments have supported an increase in timber production within Graham County and stated opposition to any additional Wilderness or Wild and Scenic River designations within Graham County, while also supporting additional recreational opportunities on Forest Service property in Graham County.
ν The county has received a special use permit to install wells to monitor water quality around an old landfill off Atoah Road. The county has been looking at installing three wells at the long-closed landfill at a cost of $61,800.
The wells are required by the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality to ensure that drainage from the site is not contaminating off-site surface and groundwater.
The expense was not budgeted, so the budget will have to be amended to enable the county to proceed.
ν Emergency Management Services Director Brian Stevens persuaded the board to approve $8,316 for a maintenance program for his department’s cardiac monitors. Stevens said maintenance has occurred only when equipment breaks down, but for something as critical and delicate as a cardiac monitor, more proactive measures are required.
The department has six cardiac monitors, and the service will provide year-round maintenance, calibration, and warrantees. It even provides loaners for equipment taken out of service and discounts on batteries.
The board also approved a similar maintenance agreement at a cost of $11,382 for Stryker-branded medical equipment kept onboard EMS ambulances, including gurneys.
EMS will be seeking bids for two new ambulances to replace the two oldest in-service ambulances. The department normally buys one ambulance a year, but COVID-19 has delayed purchases over the past two years.
It takes 18-36 months for delivery of a new ambulance once it is ordered, Stevens said.
Stevens said his department is in good shape right now, but anything could happen in the next two years.
ν County commissioners were asked to chime in on legislative priorities in the coming year, and state mandates without state funding was first on their minds. The county was forced to cut costs in order to pay for mandatory pay increases at county schools.
A list of five proposed priorities listed unfunded mandates as the fifth priority. Commissioners said it needs to be the first priority.