Mayor Selby: Council is ‘unified’ in wanting to keep county courthouse in Olympia

Thurston County Commissioners met with city of Olympia officials for the first time on Thursday to discuss a proposed new county courthouse.

At the beginning of the meeting, Mayor Cheryl Selby told the three-member county commission that it’s not easy to get a unanimous decision from the seven-member Olympia City Council, but they are “unified” in wanting to keep the courthouse in Olympia.

In addition, city manager Steve Hall told the commissioners that the city is committed to remaining the county seat.

“There’s lots of rumors about what they (the county commissioners) were thinking” about relocating the courthouse, Selby told The Olympian after the meeting. “That’s why we needed to get up here and all get around the table.”

State law requires some county offices — such as the Sheriff, the Prosecutor and the Board of County Commissioners — be located in the county seat. All of those offices would be located in a new courthouse complex, county officials say.

“Early in the year, we discussed these requirements and questions, but nothing, to my knowledge, has materialized to attempt to change state law,” county manager Ramiro Chavez told The Olympian.

Commission chairman Bud Blake told The Olympian that county officials don’t plan to move the county seat because it would be “too monumental” of a task to get the Legislature to make such a move.

“I’m not going to push that, fight that,” Blake said.

However, the county is exploring options for relocating some of its offices or departments that aren’t required to be in Olympia to different areas of the county, Blake said. Officials want to find out if it makes financial sense to move some of its departments or employees to offices in Lacey, Yelm or south Thurston County, he said.

“If it costs less … then I’m probably going to entertain that,” Blake said.

As for the courthouse discussion, little information was shared Thursday, but both sides committed to meeting monthly and work on a communication plan.

“It’s going to be critical for us to form relationships and put ourselves together,” said Commissioner John Hutchings.

Selby said the city is interested in being a partner and possibly build a new jail at the county’s new courthouse complex.

Selby and other Olympia officials said they’ll plan to attend a county briefing on Nov. 9 that will include information on what the county is looking for in a potential site, and the various funding models that could be used to pay for construction. Chavez said it would likely cost about $200 million to build.

Last spring, the commissioners worked with the Legislature to get a law passed that will help the county raise money over a longer period of time for the new courthouse, which would reduce the amount county taxpayers would have to pay each year.

County officials said they’ve looked at about a dozen sites, but haven’t selected one. In September, the city of Olympia offered up its old City Hall at Plum and Eighth, which is now the Lee Creighton Justice Center, as a future location for the new courthouse and a new city jail.

A facility hasn’t been designed, but county officials believe they will need at least a 320,000-square-foot building to meet their needs. Of that, about 200,000 square feet would be for the new courthouse, which would feature 11 Superior Court courtrooms and seven district courtrooms, according to the county. The rest of the space would be used for county administration.

Commissioner Gary Edwards said the county doesn’t want to overburden taxpayers and that it’s still unknown how much the Habitat Conservation Plan for the endangered Mazama pocket gopher is going to cost.

“We’re talking about a heck of a lot of money for a community that’s really quite strapped,” Edwards said.

This story was originally published October 27, 2017 at 5:22 AM with the headline "Mayor Selby: Council is ‘unified’ in wanting to keep county courthouse in Olympia."