Morrow County to hold public meeting on possible courthouse locations

The county has yet to release information on time or location for the meetings.

Although there will be unknowns, Board Chair David Sykes said during the May 1 meeting he’s OK bringing an incomplete picture to the public to get people’s feedback while it’s still fairly early in the selection process.

“They’ve shown that they want to be involved in this process, and they’re very, very upset about the way it was done, that they feel they haven’t gotten enough input,” Sykes said. “Let’s get some buy-in from everybody else.”

After the public comment portion of the evening meeting, the commissioners might make a decision about which path to pursue.

“Some of the areas immediately outside of Heppner have an additional cost,” County Administrator Matt Jensen said, “and we want to make sure that the rest of the county chimes in on this as well because it’s county tax money that’s going to be going to this.”

The original plan

The 6th Judicial District has a seat in Heppner, but the county has to select a new location if it wants state funding allocated to match up to $12.75 million dedicated to court-related expenses. When the funding was initially approved last year, it was the county’s understanding the new building had to be in the city limits of Heppner, like the current courthouse.

The county selected a location next to the Morrow County Fairgrounds and received public pushback — especially from those who live in Heppner — due to residents’ concerns about parking and the affects the courthouse could have on the county fair and the Oregon Trail Pro Rodeo, which are major draws to the city of about 1,200 people.

Residents petitioning for a recall of all three county commissioners cite their handling of the courthouse decision as one of the five main reasons for the recall. Commissioner Roy Drago Jr. is already on the ballot during the upcoming regular election on May 21.

Amid public complaints in March after a request from Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner, Oregon Supreme Court Chief Justice Meagan Flynn issued a clarifying letter stating the courthouse could be anywhere in the county, not just within the city limits of Heppner.

The development put a pause on the commissioners’ plans for the fairgrounds as the location of the courthouse. It also opened up a discussion of alternate sites.

Considering other options

The commissioners asked Jensen to work with the design group that had been hired for the project and look into other potential locations for the courthouse and what costs would be associated with each option. The design team returned with four possible options, one of which — the most expensive — the board eliminated during the May 1 meeting.

“We are resolving to get some additional information on the impacts of additional costs, if the state would be willing to help on those or if this is just additional costs that the county would have to pick up,” Jensen said.

Hopefully, he added, there will be some idea of what the answer is by the public meetings on May 15. The county will be asking for residents’ opinions on three sites: the original proposed location in Heppner, a county-owned site in Boardman, and a section of property outside Heppner on the old Kinzua Mill site, which the Port of Morrow owns.

“We’re really trying to come up with the best option for the county,” he said. “We realized that the fairgrounds site was contentious, we kind of had a change of parameters with the chief justice’s opinion that’s led us to some uncertainty that we’re working through, and hopefully we can still determine the best option.”

During the May 1 commissioners meeting, Jensen’s design group — project managers and an architect — offered a rundown of the known and unknown costs for each site. The Boardman and county fairgrounds locations are expected to cost less than the mill site, at least partly because of the work that would be required to create water and sewer infrastructure outside the city limits of Heppner.

Still, there may be other pros and cons associated with the less-costly options. For one, residents of Heppner have no interest in the courthouse seat moving to the north end of the county. Jensen said no one at the county level is pushing for that location to win out, but it was worth considering since it’s county-owned.

“There’s political and geographical and historical advantages of keeping the courthouse near the county seat in Heppner,” Jensen said. “That’s a sentiment that’s been made clear publicly and it’s something that the commissioners are seriously keeping in mind as they consider this major decision.”