GREENE COUNTY
The Courthouse Vacant Space Allocation committee (CVSA) finally held its first meeting Tuesday to plan its strategy for solving problems of crowded conditions in offices and general repair needs at the 175-year-old Greene County Courthouse in downtown Greensboro.
The courthouse is home to the Clerk of Superior Court, Probate/Magistrate Court, District Attorney, Public Defender, Sheriff’s Court Services Division, and the Veterans Administration. The offices in these courts are primarily cramped.
In one case, two employees must work at small desks in a vault that holds county records from the county's founding in 1786.
The committee was formed after a controversy this summer when it became known that the Board of Commissioners had planned to solve the crowding problem for over a year by removing all judicial and court services from the courthouse. A new $26 million Judicial Center was proposed to be built away from downtown at the county’s C. Weldon Smith complex.
Opponents said moving those employees out of the courthouse would dramatically hurt downtown businesses that rely on traffic from the courts. Others championed the courthouse's historical value.
For years, long-time Probate/ Magistrate Judge LaVerne Ogletree has insisted there is plenty of room for expansion on the courthouse’s third floor, where office space has been left vacant since 2009.
Adding to the outrage, the Lake Oconee News reported that the BOC had already spent $1.1 million on an architectural design by the McCall Architecture Company for the Judicial Center project.
Eight weeks ago, the Board of Commissioners, yielding to vocal public opposition, announced it was not moving forward on its plan for a new Judicial Center.
The seven-member CVSA committee was formed with Commissioners Angela Deering and Dee Lindsey as co-chairs. Ogletree, Clerk of Court Deborah Jackson, and Greene County citizens Lee Rhodes, Bill Posey, and Jim Sweeney are also on the committee.
Its specific mission is to evaluate the space in the courthouse and develop a plan to relieve the crowded conditions now and in the future. The committee is not allowed to consider extending the courthouse, building new buildings, or leasing space in existing buildings as part of its plan.
One idea discussed Tuesday was considering a professional needs study to determine what space each department requires.
Several other suggestions were made by committee members, as well as citizens who attended the meeting.
Community supporter Ray Brindley suggested that the $1.1 million design plan for the scuttled Judicial Center could have some value. He said departmental needs must have been evaluated as part of the plan's development. Deering said she would see what research and data from the McCall plan are available.
Not everyone on the committee had actually walked through the courthouse to evaluate the situation, so Deering indicated that perhaps the next meeting would be held there. That meeting could be in one or two weeks.
Deering told the Lake Oconee News that she hopes the committee can develop an action plan by the end of this year that will be presented to the full BOC.
The CVSA's meetings are open to the public and will be announced in advance on the county website at greenecountyga.gov.
Anyone interested can also sign up on the website to be notified by email when meetings of all county departments are scheduled.