County wants feasibility study on court consolidation

LEE COUNTY – The Lee County Board of Supervisors wants more information on the feasibility of closing the North Lee County Courthouse.
The board, at its regular meeting Tuesday, discussed the idea of moving to a single courthouse to include getting a professional opinion on whether the south Lee County Courthouse in Keokuk could support court services for the county.
Previous input for the Iowa Department of Justice indicated their preference would be to have room for four courtrooms in the county. County officials, at that point, weren’t convinced the county first, could accommodate that in one courtroom, and second, that the county needed four courtrooms.
The move would only consolidate state court service operations and not consolidate county services, which are offered at the county administration building on Avenue H in Fort Madison.
At Tuesday’s meeting, supervisors discussed options for getting qualified information about scenarios involving relocation of the state court services to one building.
“We’ve been talking about possibly closing the Fort Madison courthouse and moving everything statewide down into the Keokuk courthouse and we need someone to tell us if that’s feasible,” said Board Chairwoman Denise Fraise.
Supervisor Garry Seyb said he agreed that the county needs to find out if moving to Keokuk is a viable option for the county.
“In my mind, there’s three options. There's a status quo, move to Keokuk, or build a new one,” Seyb said.
He said status quo puts the county right back in the situation there were in a few years ago where they are looking at maintenance costs like tuckpoints, air conditioning, heating, as well as insurance costs of both buildings.
Supervisor Chuck Holmes said if they could fit the court services in the Keokuk building, they may need to relocate some of the other county positions which he said could cost the county. However, Fraise said the county owns other properties in Keokuk where those offices could be relocated.
Seyb said step one is determining if it’s even possible to fit the court services in the one building.
We need to have a study done that says either it will fit or it won’t fit. If it won’t fit, then we're down to the two other options, build a new one or keep doing what we’re doing,” he said.
He said the study should include the costs of renovations that would be needed.
Fraise said the study should include plans and costs for relocating the county employees, if need be.
Discussion then focused on how they would do the study. Holmes suggested Southeast Iowa Regional Planning Commission, but Seyb said they would probably have to hire someone to do the work and that could add to county costs. County Maintenance Director Mark Klesner said Carl A. Nelson, who is the current construction manager on the Meller Family Health Center, the new Lee County Health Department/EMS facility in Fort Madison, said they could possibly help with the study.
“From the feedback I’ve received from them, they were just gonna try and help us, guide us in the right direction,” Klesner said.
“It's probably gonna involve an architect at that point because an architect is gonna be the one who's going to be able to get you the cost of doing such a thing and at that point, I think, you're right, we go out for a bid.”
The move to consolidate was also a recommendation from the county’s building committee.
Seyb said the focus should be on cost savings and shrinking county government and the county’s footprint to reduce overall costs.
Fraise asked where the funds would come from and Seyb said the county could use the automated traffic enforcement camera fund for funds accumulated prior to new state regulations governing how the funds can be used. Seyb said there’s close to $1 million in that account currently. However, he said the county needs to be cautious moving forward with spending that not knowing where the Meller Family Health Center will end up costwise.
“We need to keep our eye on the ball there,” he said.
In other action, the board:
• approval a lease agreement with Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation in Keokuk.
• approved the third and final reading of a new ordinance regulating siting and operation of wind, solar, and battery energy systems. That new ordinance can be viewed on the county’s website at leecountyiowa.gov.
• approved terminated 28E agreement with MHASEI Mental Health Region.
• heard an update from the county’s Best You Coalition.