County eyes design contract for courts building

Yakima County officials want to separate the county's courts from its administrative offices -- a project with a price tag that could exceed $100 million -- and they expect to take another step toward that today.

The county commissioners plan to sign a $637,000 design contract for the project at their regular meeting this morning. Eventually, they will have to put the matter before voters for funding, but that isn't expected until 2010.

The project, recommended last year by a county facilities committee, includes taking law and justice functions out of the existing courthouse and putting them in a new courthouse directly north of the downtown jail on the corner of North Front Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

The current courthouse, which houses offices for the county auditor, assessor, treasurer and clerk as well as the commissioners and public services department, would be renovated, as would the downtown jail.

Commissioners believe the county will save money in the long run by doing away with "a menagerie of inefficiencies" in the current set-up, Commissioner Mike Leita said Monday.

It will also increase security, he said. In its current configuration, the courthouse can have jail inmates in the halls along with folks who are there for things like car license renewals.

"We are moments away from a crisis," Leita said.

Estimates for the entire project have been as high as $135 million, but the actual cost will depend on specifics that have not been determined. County taxpayers will be asked to fund some of it with a bond issue, which requires voter approval.

The amount of that bond issue, the debt from which would be paid down by a new tax, has yet to be determined.

The commissioners today also expect to hold a public hearing on their preliminary 2009 budget. Another hearing on the $53.5 million budget is set for 7 p.m. Wednesday in Sunnyside, with a third to come at 7 p.m. Thursday at the courthouse in Yakima.