By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The big transition continues to move forward. Wednesday morning, Barton County Commissioners met with county department heads inside the vacant JC Penney building located catty-corner from the Barton County Courthouse. The goal is to find a suitable workspace for county operations while a new HVAC system is installed in the 104-year-old courthouse.
"We're moving forward and getting closer, but nothing definitive yet," said County Director of Operations Matt Patzner. "We're gathering more information. The further along we get, the more information we gather, the more questions we have. We have to be thorough with this and make sure we do it right, and that's a long process."
Cold and dark best described Wednesday's tour as the JC Penney building is currently without electricity. Commission Chair Shawn Hutchinson told employees the 50,000 square feet available in the building would be similar to the space inside the courthouse. Patzner said, ideally, departments with high foot traffic would be located on the lower floor of the former department store. "Even if the escalator is working," he said, "it's still not going to be ADA compliant."
Mark Bitter with Kustom Floor Designs was on hand to answer questions about any remodeling that would need to be done to accommodate the county offices. Mold remediation was introduced to begin the conversation.
"I haven't seen anything that is a large-scale problem at all," Bitter said. "In comparison, square-footage wise, we find much more mold than this in the average home we work in. I'm sure there are going to be some areas that have to be cleaned as we get power on and a new roof on."
Other concerns were department-specific: a secure room should the county clerk's office need to hold an election and a secure room for the county treasurer's operations. Barton County District Court is actually a state agency that operates out of the courthouse. It, too, has unique needs, with two courtrooms currently in use on the third floor of the courthouse. Confidential hearings and jury trials further complicate the matter.
"A lot of our departments, we can just set up with making sure they have desks and partitions and they're good to go," Patzner said. "District court, obviously, they have some very specific needs with privacy and security."
The transition is still several months away. Patzner will soon meet with representatives from Orazem & Scalora Engineering to set up bids for the HVAC project. Awarding a winning bid will probably take place in January or February, but definitely after new commissioners Tricia Schlessiger, Duane Reif, and Donna Zimmerman are sworn in on Jan. 11, 2023. The county set aside $400,000 for the move in its 2023 budget.