On Tuesday, the Greene County Board of Commissioners appointed five members to the Courthouse Vacant Space Allocation (CVSA) committee.
The group will evaluate the use of space in the 175-year-old Greene County Courthouse in downtown Greensboro and how to relieve overcrowding in some of the key offices.
The BOC established the committee in response to public opposition to the original plan to move all court and judicial business out of the existing courthouse to a new Judicial Center to be built on C. Weldon Smith Drive.
In March 2023, the commissioners unanimously voted to spend $1.1 million on an architectural design for the Judicial Center.
In July 2024, the Lake Oconee News first reported that the design was completed, and the commission was prepared to vote to proceed with the $26 million project. But that vote never happened.
Many vocal residents and downtown business owners convinced most commissioners – Angela Deering, Dee Lindsey, and Jeffery Smith – to reverse their previous support for the project.
Commissioners Deering and Lindsey will head up the CVSA committee. Three Greene County citizens, Lee Rhodes, Bill Posey, and Jim Sweeney, will be joined on the committee by Greene County Superior Clerk of Court Deborah Jackson and Probate/Magistrate Judge Laverne Ogletree.
Jackson and Ogletree say they need more space on the building’s first floor. Judge Ogletree says she has been particularly vocal about the issue since 2009, adding that her concerns and ideas for a solution have been ignored.
She took a reporter on a tour of the courthouse in August, pointing out desks and people jammed into a small space in the Clerk of Court’s office and the need for space in her office, where two of her staff members sit at desks in a document storage vault.
Offices for other court-related departments and the main courtroom occupy the second floor. The third floor includes a second courtroom and five vacant, good-sized rooms, about 2,300 square feet, according to county documents, which Ogletree says have been unused since 2019.
She thinks there is plenty of room to relieve overcrowding in the courthouse now and in the future.
The CVSA committee will evaluate the use of space in the courthouse and report its recommendations to the BOC. The committee was told not to consider any open office space in downtown Greensboro as part of the solution.
Commissioner Deering says the committee’s meetings will be announced and open to the public.