Like homeowners who plan to sell one home to “move up” to another, the Greene County supervisors are using the suggested sale of the former National Guard armory to the Greene County school district as an opportunity to prepare for future needs.
The county secondary roads department now uses the armory, located on County Road E-53 about a mile east of Jefferson, for storage of trucks, tires, signage, and other equipment. The Greene County school district hopes to purchase it for use as a bus garage.
County engineer Wade Weiss told the supervisors at their May 9 meeting that school officials asked him to set a price. Weiss said the county has $225,000 into the building and suggested selling the building for that amount, with no guarantees on the heating or sewer systems.
The supervisors didn’t disagree with that price. They went on to do some brainstorming on what a new secondary roads facility might look like. According to board chair John Muir, the armory was “not exactly what we wanted, but the cost for the roof space was good.”
The armory has 1,500 square feet of space; Weiss said his department could use more room. The current main shop is among the oldest in the state, he said, and although it’s serviceable now, he suggested the new building be designed in anticipation of moving the shop there in the future, perhaps not for 30 years.
Muir agreed, saying, “we’re not here to be shortsighted.” Supervisor Dawn Rudolph suggested the building be insulated at construction (the armory is cold storage). Supervisor Mick Burkett suggested running the pipes for a heated floor in the area that would eventually be the shop. There was talk of stubbing in water and sewer lines, and of including office space and storage space.
Weiss estimated that at $20 a square foot, the replacement for the armory could cost about $400,000. More than half would be covered by the sale of the armory. He suggested the additional $175,000 would be in the FY ’18 budget. The building would be located on property the county owns adjacent to the current county “shed” on W. Wall St in Jefferson.
The school has a lease with the Greene County Fair Association for bus storage through June 30, 2017. Discussion of the purchase is expected to be on the school board’s May 18 agenda.
Trading spaces at the courthouse: Before talking about replacing the armory, IT/GIS/drainage coordinator Michelle Fields outlined a plan she and Billie Jo Hoskins, deputy for elections in the auditor’s office, devised to re-allocate space in the courthouse.
Currently, the auditor’s election equipment is stored in the law library on the third floor of the courthouse. According to auditor Jane Heun, the law library is seldom used since Code books became available in digital format.
The plan, which was okayed in concept by the supervisors, calls for moving the magistrate courtroom to the third floor, taking the space now used by the law library. The IT/drain office, now next to the magistrate room on the first floor, would move to the vacated first floor space, and the IT/drain space would be available for court officers’ use.
Fields suggested there would be an advantage to having both the magistrate and the district court on the third floor. Sheriff Steve Haupert agreed. Fields also said that the room the election equipment would be moved to could be more easily climate controlled.
The move will require running computer network wiring to the third floor magistrate space, as well as some replacement flooring. County sanitarian Chuck Wenthold, a former wood shop teacher, offered to give the magistrate’s bench a facelift.
The move will be accomplished after the June 7 primary election and before June 30.
