ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Remodeling and security needs have been on the minds of many at the Seward County Courthouse, and Monday, Contract Consultant Neal Coffey brought some news on the progress of that work to county commissioners.
“We’ve been working for quite some time on the scope document for the courthouse remodel with our architect, GMCN,” he said. “As a part of that process, we pulled in the staff at the courthouse, the District Court judges to try to come up with a plan that would work for everybody in the building.”
Coffey said about a week and a half before this week’s meeting, he met with key stakeholders to discuss the process of sequentially shutting down parts of the courthouse.
“Since that section would be shut down, the question is how we would move those offices or courtrooms to different areas to facilitate that workflow and how we would move the courthouse personnel, the District Court personnel, the citizens and the prisoners over there,” he said. “As we’re doing the sequencing and the traffic flow, the subject came up specifically from the District Court staffing and the county attorney, they really don’t want to see us spend that money on the remodel.”
Instead, Coffey said courthouse officials would prefer the money be spent on upgrades for security for the building.
“Since that conversation, I have engaged our architect, GMCN to come down and start discussing with the key stakeholders what that security plan could/would actually look like and to begin to develop some costs on that,” he said. “We would come back to you with what I perceive as a line item request for the different areas of remodel and/or security.”
Coffey said the commission could decide from a funding and priority perspective whether they would like to pursue remodel or security work first.
“I will caution you, the remodel scope work was two days away from going out to bidders,” he said. “It was that close to being done. This really is the definition of a pivot, and I didn’t want to do that pivot without first having the conversation with you. We discussed this extensively in the work session, but we need some formal direction from you to tell me which way you would like to proceed.”
Commission Chairman Scott Carr said he and Administrator April Warden had met with the county’s grant writer, who told them it would be easier to get grant money for security than for a remodel.
“If you do all the security work, there’s no money for remodel work, and there’s a lot of area that needs to be remodeled due to water damage in the courthouse,” Carr said.
Coffey said another option is to pursue a grant, and he believes this is a great way to go.
“We still have to have the plan in place, which would be developed by GMCN,” he said. “If we went for that grant through that process, we could present this as our plan. We would maintain the approach with the development of that plan through GMCN, but we may not pursue it from a project since it’s really not funded.”
Commissioner Presephoni Fuller said for her, security is a priority.
“We don’t want anything to happen to any of the employees or attorneys or anybody who goes into that building,” she said. “We saw the schematics of how it’s going to look. I would say pursue that with GMCN Architects and see how much it’s going to cost to draw those plans up. Hopefully, this will be something we can draw up and really put feet to fire and not have to come back and redo something.”
Coffey said from a security standpoint, plans for the courthouse flow nicely.
“If you split the courthouse into two sections and if you look at the District Court offices as the first section and the county attorney end, it’s going to be fairly simple, cut and dried as far as establishing the security boundaries in those two halves,” he said. “Where it gets to be complicated is when we’re moving people back and forth across that boundary. We’ll have to figure out how we do that.”
Carr said deadlines for the county to spend money from the federal American Rescue Plan Act are looming as well.
Commissioner C.J. Wettstein asked if GMCN had been contacted to get an estimated timetable for a plan. Coffey said a kickoff session was scheduled for Friday.
“That kickoff session could be a long way from a final plan,” Coffey said. “It could be, but that will be one of the questions for GMCN based on what gets proposed in there. What is their perception of when we can have a plan? We’ll ask, and maybe we’ll have some better information when we meet again on the 20th.”
Warden said funding for security could not be obtained until 2025.
“You’ve missed a lot of the grant deadlines for that,” she said. “We are still reaching out to USDA. The problem is you have to have a plan, and you have to know the cost you’re going after when you’re applying for a grant. We totally pivoted on what the goal was for this.”
Carr said a plan could still be put in place to apply for a grant next year.
“GMCN was worried if we had enough money to do what we wanted to do for the remodel,” he said.
Fuller asked what the projected date of completion would be. Coffey said because no bid documentation has gone out, there is no completion date at this point. He did say ARPA funds needed to be earmarked by the end of 2024 and spent by 2026.
Coffey said the hard pivot complicates some of the project’s timelines.
“I still think they’re possible, but I think we’re going to have to stay on our toes as we go through this pivot to anticipate if we’re good to go or not,” he said. “Let’s fall back to what would know, which would be the remodel.”
Coffey said court staff specifically wants remodel work done around Courtroom C and District Judge Clint Peterson’s offices.
“We know we have to get that done,” he said. “There’s a jury room. There’s quite a few rooms and areas we have to repair the water damage.”
Coffey said what needs to be done with the courthouse seems to become more complicated with each passing day.
“What was a clear vision as we were moving forward with the remodel has now become quite cloudy based on the wants and needs for the security,” he said.
Whatever is done, Commission Vice Chair Tammy Sutherland-Abbott said the commission needs to remain steadfast on the goals it sets.
“We did the same thing with the rodeo bleachers, and we need to all our homework,” she said. “It seems we’re not getting all that done before we’re wanting to go in a certain direction, and then we’re back-pedaling.”
Fuller said she disagreed with Sutherland-Abbott.
“We have spent quite a bit of time trying to work on these projects and prioritize these projects and prioritize these projects and finding out what can be done and what cannot be done,” Fuller said. “With the courthouse, we look at security as a priority or remodel. We like travertine floors and all of the nice stuff in there, but security is more important.”
Fuller added no matter what the commission decides, Planning and Zoning staff needs to be consulted to ensure money is not being wasted and work needing to be redone. Sutherland-Abbott said this was the point she was trying to make.
“We should have done all our homework first,” Sutherland-Abbott said. “I disagree because if we knew we were doing the remodel, we should have known, or we should have had that thought up.”
Carr said part of the remodel project does have some security items in it with Courtroom C and the hallway with the judge’s chamber.
“That was part of the remodel, but you have to look back at the money to support this,” he said. “We can get a grant more on the security than you can a remodel.”
Commissioner Steve Helm said security items only recently became part of the picture.
“I think we should go ahead and look at what it’s going to take for the security updates,” he said. “Maybe there’s parts of the remodel we can delay that would be involved in the security part of it.”
Carr said District Court staff was involved in the remodel discussions.
“We had talked to the judge,” he said. “We had talked to the clerk. It’s not like they were in the dark on the project.”
Coffey said District Court leaders would like the county to not spend money on the remodel yet, instead look further at security features and move forward from that point.
“I will tell you we have the remodel project in our back pocket,” he said. “If at some point in time you as a commission decide to go forward with the remodel project, it’s days away from pushing that button. Are you okay with the pivot as far as developing a security plan as guided by the key stake holders, District Court and the county attorney, developing that plan, coming back to you as that plan develops and figuring out how you as a group want to go with the understanding that at any point in time, we’re a button push away from going straightforward with the remodel project?”
Carr asked Coffey to come back to the commission’s May 20 meeting with answers from GMCN’s timeline for the project.
Carr also said at this time, the county does not have enough money for all of the remodel items wanted on the outside of the courthouse, and he asked the commission if they would be willing to put funds into the county’s budget for the next fiscal year for the project. Helm said he felt the project needs to be looked at to see what the county can afford.
