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Clerk warns of basement floods, humidity and aging alarms; digital land-records project completed
Summary
Miss Martin, Clerk of the Circuit Court, told the board the office completed a multi-year digitization of land records and is seeking grants and funds to preserve older records; she warned the courthouse basement vault floods monthly, causing humidity, mold and deterioration and said smoke detectors and infrastructure may not meet modern codes.
Miss Martin, Clerk of the Circuit Court, updated the Board of Supervisors Feb. 25 on three priorities: completion of a multi-year land-records digitization project, ongoing preservation grants and an urgent facilities problem affecting the basement record vault.
The clerk said the office completed digitization of land records from 1749 to present using non-reverting land-records funds and that indexes and some will registries are also online. She reported receiving a preservation grant from the Library of Virginia in 2024 and applying for an additional grant to restore deed books and marriage licenses.
The clerk told supervisors the basement vault floods roughly once a month, the vault humidity averages about 65–70%, and mold and mildew are appearing on documents. The vault contains secure materials—election results and juvenile matters—that cannot be stored in a public record room. The clerk said some smoke detectors are outdated and the record-room ceiling contains asbestos, complicating replacement or hardwiring of alarms.
The clerk asked the board to treat basement storage and climate-control remediation as a countywide facilities priority. Supervisors and staff discussed interim measures (dehumidifiers, pump/drain options) and agreed facilities staff should research low-cost fixes and include longer-term vault remediation in the courthouse maintenance plan.
Separately, the clerk asked the county to restore modest line items to the clerk’s operating budget, including funding to adopt an “easy jury” system that automates juror randomization and summons distributions; she estimated the annual service would be about $3,500 and said it improves juror numbering and the voir dire process.
