A modest brick bungalow at the corner of Maple and Pine streets was once the go-to place for area residents who wanted to update their voter registrations.
Now, those who present their name and address at this one-story edifice in Graham are less likely to wind up on the voter rolls than to learn they’ve been formally served by the court.
Since the last week of February, this county-owned structure next to the John Hardie Stockard Law Enforcement Center has been home to the civil division of Alamance County’s sheriff office.
Although many residents may still remember this site as the headquarters of Alamance County’s board of elections, the building ceased to have any connection to voting in 2023 when the local elections office moved to its current location at 1128 South Main Street. There followed a brief period of disuse before the county remodeled the structure to serve as a temporary abode for its new public defender’s office, which has since relocated to another, more capacious facility on the other side of South Maple Street.
According to Byron Tucker, a spokesman for Alamance County’s sheriff, the people who now frequent this building are tasked with various duties that ensure the smooth operation of the county’s civil court system.
“At times, they serve summons,” Tucker explained in an interview. “They serve evictions. Anytime there’s civil proceedings, they process those papers.”
Tucker added that, until recently, the members of this unit had worked out of the county’s administrative annex at 201 West Elm Street. The county’s top brass cleared out portions of this building earlier this year to make room for a temporary jury lounge so that the regular lounge in the Judge J.B. Allen, Jr. Court House could be commandeered for an additional courtroom.
A byproduct of the state’s decision to spot Alamance County a fifth district court judge, this veritable game of musical chairs is expected to continue until the county completes a multimillion-dollar expansion of the Allen Court House. In the meantime, the county has been scrambling to find temporary accommodations for the building’s previous occupants.
Tucker notes that the civil division isn’t the only group under the sheriff’s command that has been displaced in this domino chain of relocations.
“CSI has also had to move,” he acknowledged. “They’re in the basement of the sheriff’s office, right now, which is better for them because they’re closer to the evidence room.”
