The jury could very literally be “out” as Alamance County’s leaders continue to seek new, cost-effective ways to provide additional space for the local court system.
A plan to relocate the “jury lounge” from the Judge J.B. Allen, Jr. Court House to another county-owned building in Graham was one of several proposals that came up for consideration when the county’s board of commissioners tackled the court system’s space needs during a regularly-scheduled meeting on Monday.
Members of Alamance County’s staff had actually broached the jury lounge’s potential removal as a “short-term” expedient in order to accommodate a new courtroom that the county will need early next year when it welcomes a fifth district court judge to the bench.
The commissioners were also presented with a number of longer-term measures on Monday that ranged from construction of a new building to the partial evacuation of the county’s own headquarters to provide extra room for the courts.
In the end, the commissioners tabled most of these ideas due either to their own misgivings or, as in the case of the jury lounge’s removal, the pushback it got from the court system. The only action that the board was willing to greenlight on Monday was a rather modest proposal to let the courts use the county’s meeting chambers for small claims hearings one day a week through the remainder of this calendar year.
Yet, the space needs that the commissioners confronted that morning aren’t exactly new to the county’s top brass. Nor are they likely to go away on their own – as became abundantly clear when Monday’s discussion approached its crescendo.
Courts packed
The persistence of the court system’s space problems was brought home by Brian Baker, an assistant county manager who has emerged as the county’s point person for the court system’s facilities.
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During his presentation to the commissioners, Baker recalled that a formal space study five years ago concluded that the courts had a pressing need for two to four additional courtrooms as well as an extra 15,000 to 25,000 square feet of office space to house various administrative functions. Baker added that a former county manager tried to address these needs through a facilities plan that was shared with the commissioners in 2019. This plan called on the county to begin work on a new administrative annex next to the Allen courthouse in 2021 and embark on a comprehensive renovation of the existing structure by 2023.
“Now, it’s obviously 2024, and we’re not quite there yet,” Baker went on to admit. “The primary reason is that our first swing at designing that office addition came back at $99 million, which is more than anyone wanted to do.”
This initial price tag of $99 million had been intended to cover the full renovation of the existing courthouse as well as the construction of a four story-annex alongside this 30-year-old edifice. Yet, the board’s sticker shock prompted the county’s administrators to obtain a streamlined set of designs for the project with a reduced price tag of roughly $67 million. This markdown was nevertheless still too steep for the commissioners, who have since instructed county staff members to explore some alternatives to the construction of a brand new building next to the Allen courthouse.
In the meantime, officials with the court system insist that their professional quarters have grown increasingly cramped since the county completed its space study in 2019. This problem became all the more urgent in 2023 when the General Assembly established a new public defender’s office to represent many of the county’s less affluent defendants. At the same time, the state legislature cleared the way for the county to elect a fifth district court judge, who is currently slated to join the district court bench in January of 2025.
In order to accommodate the new public defender and his associates, the board of commissioners has shelled out $1.2 million for a suite of law offices along South Maple Street. So far, however, the commissioners haven’t made any moves to house the rest of the court system’s ever-expanding operations, despite recurring pleas from local judges and other court system officials.
Jury trials and tribulations
In order to address some of the court system’s most imminent needs, Baker advised the commissioners to yield their own meeting chamber to the courts for one day a week to serve as a venue for small claim lawsuits. This suggestion drew some opposition from John Paisley, Jr., the chairman of Alamance County’s commissioners. Yet, the rest of the board voted 4-to-1 to let the courts use this space every Thursday for the duration of the current calendar year.
In order to provide a new courtroom when the New Year begins, Baker proposed the aforementioned relocation of the jury lounge from the Allen courthouse to the county’s so-called administrative annex at 201 West Elm Street. This building, which is situated across the street from the Allen courthouse, contains a large meeting space that Baker said could be repurposed to serve as a gathering place for people on jury duty. The assistant county manager estimated that the county would need about $50,000 to complete this transformation by the time the new district judge is seated.
“But that’s the only thing we think we can get done by January 1,” he confessed.
This short-term fix garnered some initial support from a couple of the commissioners.
Yet, the prospect of moving the jury lounge to the other side of Elm Street proved a tough sell with Alamance County’s sheriff Terry Johnson. Among other things, Johnson questioned the feasibility of this plan when viewed from his own need to provide adequate security for jurors as they amble between buildings.
Johnson’s thread was later picked up by Alamance County’s district attorney Sean Boone, who insisted that people on jury duty need a safe place to go during recess that doesn’t expose them to potentially risky run-ins with defendants and other courtroom observers.
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“To take them across the street is a terrible idea. You’re going to parade them across the street with big badges that say ‘juror’ . . . Somebody is going to get hurt, and I’m telling you about it now, so it’s not on my head when it happens.”
– District Attorney Sean Boone
“To take them across the street is a terrible idea,” he added. “You’re going to parade them across the street with big badges that say ‘juror’…Somebody is going to get hurt, and I’m telling you about it now, so it’s not on my head when it happens.”
Long-term limits
In view of these protests, the commissioners resolved to postpone any further discussion about the jury lounge’s relocation until their next regularly-scheduled meeting on August 19. They were equally hesitant to plumb three longer-term options that Baker also presented on Monday to address the local court system’s current space shortage.
One of the proposals that the assistant county manager shared with the ‘commissioners would have the county completely abandon the building at 201 West Elm Street (across the street from the Allen courthouse) to make way for the court system’s use. Baker said that the county, in turn, could move its displaced staff members to its former elderly services building, which currently sits idle along Burlington’s Martin Street. He assigned an overall price tag of $4 million to $5 million to this proposal, which would include extensive renovations of the former elderly services building.
As an alternative to the unconditional surrender of the county’s administrative annex, Baker suggested that the county could cede the first floor of its headquarters at 124 West Elm Street, which is currently home to the tax office. He said that this move would provide the courts with an additional 7,000 square feet of floor space, although it would require the relocation of the tax office’s refugees to another site, such as a nearby privately-owned building that the county would have to purchase. All told, the assistant county manager estimated that this option would the cost the county something in the neighborhood of $4 million.
Baker’s third and final option called for the construction of a new building within the vast parking area that presently lies to the west of the Allen courthouse. The assistant county manager said that this proposed annex could be built to a height of either two or three stories and, moreover, is the only one of his three longer-term options to meet all of the court system’s space needs identified in 2019. Baker added that, at a minimum, the county would have to spend $28 million to complete this building as a two-story edifice equipped with two courtrooms. At the other end of the scale, this project could cost as much as $37 million if the county opts for a three-story structure with four extra courtrooms.
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“Right now, we have eight courtrooms, and we have eight judicial officials who hold court in them almost every day of the week. If we move out of the civil annex building, we’re not getting four additional courtrooms. We’re getting one additional courtroom which we’re going to have anyway in January.”
– Chief district court judge Katie Overby
Baker said that, as a corollary to this third option, the county could reclaim the three-story structure next to its headquarters that currently serves as a civil court annex. This suggestion nevertheless drew a caveat from Katie Overby, the county’s chief district court judge, who pointed out that this option would offer a rather paltry net gain in terms of additional courtrooms.
“Right now, we have eight courtrooms, and we have eight judicial officials who hold court in them almost every day of the week,” Overby went on to explain. “If we move out of the civil annex building, we’re not getting four additional courtrooms. We’re getting one additional courtroom which we’re going to have anyway in January.”
Baker’s assorted proposals also proved a bit dizzying for commissioners like Steve Carter, who serves as the vice chairman of the county’s governing board.
“It’s like a game of musical chairs,” Carter told the rest of the board.
To be continued. . .
The commissioners went on to hazard some ideas of their own – some of which received decidedly mixed verdicts from county staff members and court system officials, alike.
Carter, for instance, suggested that the county could get the local school system to hand over some of its surplus mobile classrooms in order to temporarily house some of the court system’s functions. In response to this proposal, Baker said he’s “fairly certain” the school system would give up these 24-year-old doublewides but he conceded that he’s just as confident the schools wouldn’t help cover the costs to relocate the trailers.
Meanwhile, commissioner Pam Thompson urged her fellow commissioners to dispense with the figurative guardrails as they continue to explore ways to expand the local court system’s capacity.
“I don’t want to spend money like this unless it’s a long-term solution,” she declared. “Go big or go home.”
Thompson went on suggest that the county could even move the court system’s operations out of downtown Graham in order to provide the courts with more room to grow. This proposal seemed to be dead on arrival with the rest of the county’s governing board.
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“I don’t want to spend money like this unless it’s a long-term solution. Go big or go home.”
– County commissioner Pam Thompson
Yet, Thompson’s inclination to “go big” appeared to be very much in line with the thoughts of other local officials.
In fact, the prospect of a single, consolidated court building drew some words of encouragement from Judge Overby, who deemed it a vast improvement over the status quo of three buildings with their three separate security checks. Sheriff Terry Johnson, likewise, implored the commissioners to “build for the future” if they, indeed, chose to break ground on a new building for the court system.
“We can’t keep kicking the can down the road,” he added.
A large-scale endeavor even won favor with John Paisley, Jr., the chairman of Alamance County’s commissioners. Although Paisley bristled at the thought of moving the courts out of downtown Graham, he extolled the cost effectiveness of Baker’s third option – whose price of $28 million to $37 million, he said, would cost the county 1 to 1.57 cents on the tax rate if financed through a conventional bank loan.
“We have one of the lowest tax rates,” he added, “and I have voted against tax increases consistently…But at some point, we have to put on our thinking hats…and I want everything in one single building.”
Behind closed doors
Some of the commissioners were also keen to discuss the potential purchase of property to augment the space available for either the court system’s operations or the county’s own functions.
Prior to Monday’s meeting, the commissioners had gone into closed session to consider the possible acquisition of two parcels along the 200 block of South Main Street in Graham that belong to the Bank of America as well as an old insurance office and a decommissioned post office that Alamance Farmers Mutual owns near the juncture of Harden and Maple streets. The commissioners went behind closed doors once more on Monday to discuss these same four pieces of property. Their private confab also touched on a fifth parcel at 832 South Main Street that was previously home to a branch of PNC Bank.
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Various Graham locations being considered for county office space:
THE NEWEST: Former PNC Bank building at 832 South Main Street
PREVIOUSLY IDENTIFIED:
The county’s governing board ultimately remained in their closed-door powwow for nearly four hours as they huddled over several other matters in addition to these potential property purchases.
Alamance County’s attorney Rik Stevens enumerated each of these discussion topics prior to this marathon closed-door meeting. According to Stevens, the commissioners needed to meet in private to consider the fitness or qualifications of an unspecified county staff member – and, in particular, to discuss a potential employment contract for this individual. Stevens said that he also intended to brief the commissioners on various ongoing legal issues, including the recent dismissal of federal lawsuit that activist Maurice Wells, Jr. had filed against the sheriff in 2023 [See separate story in this edition.]
The commissioners had no decisions to announce when they returned from closed session at 3:17 p.m.
Read the newspaper’s editorial page views on the question of additional office space for county and courts “Graham is still the county seat; county government, courts should remain here”: https://alamancenews.com/graham-is-still-the-county-seat-county-government-courts-should-remain-here/
