Commission mulls court space options
Trending
A potential plan for bringing Minot's municipal court into the Ward County Courthouse began to take shape at the Tuesday, Oct. 20, meeting of the Ward County Commission, which intends to think on the matter and make a decision in a couple of weeks.
The commission has been meeting with City of Minot officials and with North Central District Court judges and staff in recent weeks to hone in on an acceptable option for accommodating municipal court in the courthouse.
At Tuesday's public hearing, the commission considered two options from the city that have risen to the top. Both options would rearrange use of the courthouse's main floor.
Minot City Assessor Ryan Kamrowski, who serves on a city committee looking into new municipal court space, said the estimated cost to the city to retrofit a space ranges up to $53,000. He added Minot Municipal Court would be willing to share the space with other Ward County communities' municipal courts if they need the space or the technology.
The proposed two options would convert a district court file storage room into a municipal courtroom.
The debate was around where to locate municipal court administration offices. One option is to use the Ward County State's Attorney's file storage room and the other calls for moving municipal offices into the district court administration space while relocating those district court offices to the state's attorney's storage area.
Presiding District Judge Gary Lee questioned moving district court staff from a fairly large office suite and shoehorning them into a new area. He favored the alternative that leaves district offices intact.
"I don't see a downside to that. It saves a tremendous amount of moving, a tremendous amount of renovation, a tremendous amount of dispossession - disruption of work," Lee said.
In converting file rooms for municipal court, the paperwork would be relocated, potentially to the Ward County Administration Building. However, commissioners determined municipal court offices might not need the entire space envisioned. They saw an opportunity to preserve some storage space while reconfiguring other space to allow the state's attorney's files to remain.
State's Attorney Roza Larson said, even with access to electronic records, her office is required by law to maintain paper records for certain periods of time. Those paper files are accessed daily, she said.
"What the county decides to do with their space is up to the county," Kamrowski said. "We're in no way, as the city, asking you to mandate or asking you to do anything that you don't want to do with your space there. All we're doing is asking for an opportunity to conduct operations within the courthouse."
Commissioner Jim Rostad said he believes there are workable options to share the courthouse, but he is not ready to make a decision.
"I'll once again be going through line by line and section by section of the city's proposal," Rostad said. "This is a very important decision, so we will be reviewing it very carefully for both parties."
"It does make sense to put them together," Commissioner Miranda Schuler said of municipal and district courts, "but I have reservations with the proposal where everybody basically gets shifted to accommodate for the municipal court coming into the building. I have reservations with changing the current workflow of all of our existing staff in the building just to make accommodations for the easiest flow in municipal court."
She said her leaning is toward moving both municipal court and its offices into file storage rooms while preserving some of that storage for the state's attorney.
"I want to be accommodating to the municipal court. I think it does make sense, but it doesn't make sense to disrupt the entire staff in the building to make this happen," Schuler said.
The commission plans to review the latest plan and take action at its next meeting on Thursday, Nov. 5.