Recently, we have seen movement on the county courthouse issue at a rate I don’t think this county has seen in a while.

Monday, March 25, 2002

Recently, we have seen movement on the county courthouse issue at a rate I don’t think this county has seen in a while. In a matter of months, the commissioners explored and eliminated plans for an off-site judicial center as well as a joint Freeborn and Mower County court, jail and law enforcement center.

In the end, they appear to have settled on one general scheme: go south.

That is, go south from the current courthouse across Pearl Street and onto the lot now occupied by the Western Grocer building.

It may have seemed to some like the county arrived at this plan rather quickly. Indeed, if you didn’t pay a lot of attention, it may have seemed like you had missed something when you started seeing price estimates, contracts with architects and even concept drawings of the new facility.

For those who don’t attend county board meetings regularly – in other words, everyone in the county minus about five people – it probably did seem like this was all happening too fast.

Well, on Friday, the Tribune took a step toward helping everybody sort this issue out. We invited two county representatives and two knowledgeable citizens in to our office to talk about it. We ended up with two hours of discussion and an audio tape filled front and back.

What I came away with after listening to all that talk was the sense that things really aren’t as far along as it appears.

First of all, it was explained that right now, the only thing that has been agreed upon is the idea of moving southward from the current site. The county is pretty sure it has good research to suggest a 117-bed jail, along with court offices and law enforcement, are needed. They think this will solve the court security problems, the jail security problems, and the overcrowding problems in the county offices. When the court personnel and other offices are vacated and the employees move to the new portion of the courthouse, they figure it will free up space for other offices that are currently set up in places like hallways and closets.

But County Administrator Ron Gabrielsen and County Board Chairman Dave Mullenbach were adamant about a few things: First of all, the $20 million price tag is not set in stone. That’s an initial estimate, and it could be less for all they know.

Second, the conceptual drawing the county has been toting around, and which appeared in the Tribune a week or two ago, is just that: A concept. It is not a final design. It plans for a three-story building that includes a jail on the first, partially underground floor, and other offices on the top floors.

A few people, including our community panelists Friday, seem to have balked right away when they saw that drawing. It doesn’t match the old courthouse, they said. There are no arches, no other architectural bells and whistles to keep the design consistent. The maligned 1954 building – the &uot;yellow&uot; building on the north end of the courthouse – is a mistake we don’t want to make twice, they said.

But Gabrielsen and Mullenbach said they would definitely ask that a more classical-looking design, complete with arches, be implemented when the more firm designs are drawn up. They also assured us that the color scheme would match.

Basically, it is true the county has come a long way – but there are still many decisions to be made, and things aren’t set in stone.

That’s where the public comes in. If I took one thing away from our forum, it’s that the county is going to try hard to get as much citizen input as possible. They aren’t going to do it in pubic hearings, where a few bullies can intimidate the whole crowd; instead, they’ll do it through a voice mail box and e-mail address, where any citizen can write with their ideas and concerns, as long as they leave their name and city of residence.

So, Freeborn County, know this: It’s not too late to have some input into courthouse planning, and the county assures me they will be ready to listen.

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On another topic, I’d like to make note of a milestone here at the Tribune. Friday marked the 900th column written by Ed Shannon. Ed has been working here since the mid-eighties and has only missed one column that whole time. He tells me that was about ten years ago.

Ed’s columns are an important part of the Tribune, and if we’re all lucky, we’ll see 900 more of them. If you see Ed, congratulate him!

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Dylan Belden is the Tribune’s managing editor.