Albany County weighs new county-services building vs. joint public-safety center

Albany County officials met in a work session to discuss options for consolidating county office space and easing severe crowding in the courthouse and other county facilities. "This work session is so that everybody could be together to discuss options for future county office space or county space just in general," said Jennifer, a county staff member who opened the presentation.

The meeting focused on two primary options. The first would move noncourt county services into a new county services building roughly a mile and a half from the existing courthouse, consolidating public health, WIC, planning and other county offices in one location and freeing courthouse space for judicial needs. "We do not have space in the current courthouse even for our existing personnel that work out of the courthouse," Jennifer said, noting that a likely future need for a second district court judge would require contiguous court space in the courthouse building.

The second option would create a joint public-safety complex, consolidating the sheriff’s office, prosecutions, public defenders and portions of court-related services onto an expanded footprint of the detention center. The sheriff described that proposal as a multistage plan to expand the jail footprint and consolidate services. "We have 66 beds in there.…