I don’t think they’re rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, but they are getting ready to rearrange some chairs.
Word seeped out–and by that I mean The Landmark heard about it from multiple sources–on Tuesday morning that county officials have big new plans for office quarters for certain county officials. The biggest impact is that it appears the new headquarters for the Platte County Sheriff’s Department will become the Platte County Resource Center. As you may or may not know, the Platte County Resource Center is a county-owned building located at 11724 NW Plaza Circle, Kansas City, MO. 64153, east of I-29 at the KCI Airport exit.
County officials are quick to say that move by the sheriff’s department is not yet official, but. . .county officials have given notice to the current agencies who are tenants of the resource center that they have 90 days to find new quarters. That sounds like it’s a done deal. It’s not likely that type of communication would have been given if county officials were not confident that this is the direction they’re going to go.
“We will be moving some departments around,” Scott Fricker, presiding commissioner, confirmed for me in a phone conversation on Tuesday. Some of the moves will be for greater public access while some of the moves are due to overcrowding, Fricker said. “The sheriff is going to the resource center because he is jam-packed in his current space (in the administration building in Platte City). He has grown out of that space. The resource center will allow (the sheriff’s department) room to grow over the next 15-20 years,” Fricker said. The prosecutor’s office, which recently took over the space formerly used as county commission offices while also maintaining its office space in the courthouse, will then take over the space that the sheriff’s office has been using in the administration building. “This will allow him (the prosecutor’s office) room to grow for 15-20 years,” Fricker said.
One question that I should have asked but haven’t yet: So does this mean county commissioners will have room to once again have office space in the administration building? Because it’s needed. Taxpayers deserve to know there’s an office they can enter to visit with their county commissioners, or at least leave a calling card of sorts for the commissioners if they’re not present at the time.
The previous presiding county commissioner didn’t believe it was important for the commissioners to have a presence in the administration building. That’s bad public policy and hopefully Fricker will see fit to correct it.
Another move to be made in the near future, according to my conversation with Fricker, is that the county is looking to relocate the county collector’s office to the first floor of the administration building from its current location in a corner of the second floor of the building. The collector’s office gets the most walk-in traffic of any county office and therefore should be easily accessible by taxpayers who want to come pay their bills, Fricker indicated, and he is not wrong about that.
“It’s the office most used by the public and currently the hardest to find,” Fricker remarked to me on Tuesday.
Fricker noted the maneuvering and building improvements are being brought to the forefront in large part by the approximate $20 million the county has at its disposal in federal ARPA money. As you’ll recall, ARPA is the American Rescue Plan Act which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden in March of 2021. It was part of the federal government’s plan “to speed up the country’s recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing recession,” the feds told us.
Fricker said the county’s goal is to use the money primarily to eliminate issues with county buildings (the county courthouse needs new windows, the resource center needs a new roof, HVAC systems need replaced, etc.) and to make the county more efficient and user-friendly.
A final report from an architect is expected in a couple of weeks, Fricker said.
Some local organizations currently use the Platte County Resource Center as a meeting space. If the sheriff’s department occupies the building, that will have to change.
“We have notified groups that use it that they should make plans for another space. It is possible some groups will want to use the county commission meeting room on the second floor of the administration building,” said Joe Vanover, second district county commissioner. “Others may find better facilities for their meetings.”
Vanover said the county wants to use a large part of the ARPA funds “for capital investments in and physical plant changes to public facilities that respond to COVID-19 and for mitigation measures to prevent COVID-19 in congregate settings within public facilities.” Vanover, like Fricker, said a final decision about moving the sheriff’s department “has not been made but because we are moving in that direction we are taking the preliminary steps to make that possible.”
Sports fans, I have noticed an interesting potential futures wager if you’re into that sort of thing. Right now you can get the Kentucky Wildcats at 40-1 to win the NCAA title. Might be worth putting some pizza money on that one. Get it soon for highest potential payout, as those odds will drop if/when Kentucky beats Kansas on Saturday night.
I don’t know about my fellow Chiefs fans but I’m not at all confident in our team’s chances against the Bengals this weekend. And the injury to Mahomes has nothing to do with it. I would have been predicting a Cincy victory even with a healthy Mahomes.
I wouldn’t mind being wrong on that prediction, of course.
(Foley will be rearranging some chairs in The Landmark, which means he’ll finally convince the employees to give him the comfy one. Email him at ivan@plattecountylandmark.com)