Kootenai County To Make Office Proposal Today’s Announcement First Step To End Overcrowding In County Offices

Kootenai County commissioners today will unveil plans to construct a new county office building along Garden Avenue beside the courthouse.

The announcement is the latest in years of plans and proposals and committee meetings about how to combat a courthouse space crunch.

Most of the proposals have been batted around publicly, but Administrator Tom Taggart would not offer details Monday.

Commission Chairman Dick Compton did not return telephone calls to his office Monday.

“They’ll talk about dollar amounts, time frames, location, everything,” Taggart said of commissioners’ scheduled press conference to discuss the building.

County workers have complained for years that some employees work at desks crammed into walk-in closets or under stairwells. Judges complained that they soon would run out of court space.

About three years ago, a citizens committee was established to seek solutions. Participants came up with a plan for a large new building with an $11 million cost. Convinced voters would balk at the amount, commissioners sought other alternatives.

Last year, commissioners budgeted $500,000 for the first phase of a project to build a smaller, 30,000- to 40,000-square-foot annex across Garden Avenue from the courthouse.

It would house the building and planning departments, the prosecutor’s office and other county departments.

While state law requires voter approval to seek long-term debt, the county proposed bypassing the requirement through a lease-purchase agreement with the Idaho Association of Counties.

Officials feared the public would not approve a $2 million to $3 million building by the required two-thirds vote, which would force the county to continue leasing additional space.

The county already was paying nearly $200,000 a year in rent to house departments along Northwest Boulevard and across Government Way.

In 1995, new commissioners took office and the project stalled.

Commissioners Dick Panabaker and Dick Compton had campaigned against the lease-purchase agreement, claiming that voters should make the ultimate decision.

Less than a week after taking office, both men acknowledged that financing method may be the best choice after all.

But commissioners still looked to other solutions.

They considered buying or leasing existing office space, including an old U.S. Forest Service building on Ironwood. Later, Compton said keeping the courthouse in one complex and designing a building to meet county needs would be better.

, DataTimes