Plans for new Linn County Juvenile Courthouse all over budget

Architect Rob Peck showed up Monday with three floor plans for a new Linn County Juvenile Courthouse. All three plans were over budget.

The Board of Supervisors will send the plans back to a design committee to come up with some cost-saving options.

“Somebody's got to weigh the cost,” Supervisor Brent Oleson said to Peck, of Design Dynamics.

Oleson said the juvenile courthouse needs to stay within the $3.9 million budget provided by an I-JOBS grant for the project.

He and Supervisor Jim Houser went back and forth over whether the building needs a sally port - a garage into which a squad car can drive and drop off a youth for a court date.

“It's a matter of security, not only for the juvenile but for the officer,” Houser said. He said sally ports are an industry standard for court facilities.

Oleson said he's sure sally ports are helpful, but he argued that Juvenile Court is not the same as adult court, and a sally port should be an add-on the supervisors can choose if they have the money.

“For a juvenile courthouse, it is something that would be nice, but it is not a necessity,” he said. “You can function without it.”

Supervisor Linda Langston pointed out that the budget for the Juvenile Courthouse was conceived in an emergency, when the county had to quickly come up with a number for the I-JOBS board. The supervisors, she said, needn't hold themselves to it too closely and should instead build a proper courthouse.

“We went for a best guess,” she said.

The design committee will work on the plans and send them back to the supervisors with more options.