THINGS GET HEATED BETWEEN JUDGES AND COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Talk of a new Platte County Courthouse is now off the table.
That’s after Scott Fricker, presiding county commissioner, spoke to a meeting of the county-appointed “public safety committee” last Tuesday night, Oct. 17.
The public safety committee was appointed with the assigned mission of coming up with recommendations on handling the county’s jail population. But the committee, with input from county circuit court judges, had strayed from that mission and had been talking about proposing a new courthouse as well as a proposed jail population solution.
This wasn’t sitting well with county commissioners, who have indicated they are satisfied that the current courthouse can serve the county’s next generation of litigants, lawyers, judges and staff. The county’s engineers and architects have made that assessment.
“I made it clear to the committee they should not present a new courthouse as an option because we (county commissioners) won’t accept it. So they will not present that as an option,” Fricker told The Landmark.
By law, the county commission serves as owner and landlord of county-owned government buildings. It would be the county commission that would need to place any sort of new courthouse question on an election ballot, and Fricker says county commissioners will not do it.
Joe Vanover, second district county commissioner, told The Landmark the same thing in a separate interview.
Judges were not happy to have the new courthouse idea shut down, Fricker said, and a contentious meeting between judges and county commissioners took place the next day about renovations to the existing courthouse, with the judges pushing for much larger courtrooms than the county commission deems necessary. Judges indicated to county commissioners that the county “will never last another 10 years” in the current courthouse, expressing the belief that the current courthouse is “undersized and inadequate,” Fricker said.
“The judges feel like we have to give them whatever they want and we feel like we just have to give them what they need. There’s a big gap between those two,” Fricker told The Landmark.
Judge Ann Hansbrough has been the most vocal of the judges in wanting a new courthouse and larger courtrooms. Judge Quint Shafer has been vocal as well, and Judge Thomas Fincham agrees. The two newest judges, Megan Benton and Amy Ashelford, were also present at the courthouse renovation meeting last Wednesday.
Judges have repeatedly indicated their dockets are slammed and their circuit court is short staffed when it comes to judges. A new circuit judge position was authorized by the state earlier this year and that position will be filled by Benton, and Benton’s vacated associate circuit judge spot will soon be filled, giving the county six judges.
However, a state report from the Missouri Circuit Courts Judicial Needs Assessment Model indicates that prior to the new judgeship position, Platte County was understaff by only .6 of a judge. Understaffed by less than one judge, in other words.
By that measurement, with the newly-created judge spot, when the sixth judge comes on board Platte County will actually be overstaffed by .4 of a judge, according to the state’s needs assessment.
This shows the judge/docket situation in Platte County has not been and will not be as dire as judges have painted it to be, county commissioners believe, based on the state needs assessment model performed by the state circuit court budget committee.
Meanwhile, Fricker said Hansbrough has been claiming yet another new judge position is “imminent” for Platte County. Fricker counters by pointing out that is not what the state circuit court budget committee information is showing.
Platte County has millions of dollars in American Rescue Plan Act federal money that it will use to add a new courtroom in the existing courthouse for the new judge, and then will still have enough room to add another courtroom down the road.
“We think this is a 10-year solution for the existing courthouse,” Fricker said.
Fricker said Hansbrough has indicated she feels the current courthouse is “undersized and inadequate.”
The county is also using ARPA money to move the sheriff’s department from the facility in Platte City to the Platte County Resource Center near KCI, and also to move the county prosecutor’s office from the courthouse to the sheriff’s department’s vacated space in the administration building.
COURTROOM SIZES
Points of contention in the Oct. 18 meeting between judges and commissioners involved the size of courtrooms.
Judges think they need 3,000 sq. ft. trial courtrooms, Fricker and Vanover both said in separate interviews with The Landmark.
Hansbrough has argued for 3,000 sq. ft. trial courtrooms based on what she says is the recommended size from the National Center for State Courts (NCSC)
Vanover says that’s not exactly what the NCSC recommendation says.
“NCSC states a multi-defendant mega courtroom may need to exceed 3,000 sq. ft. Such multi-party trials may need to accommodate ‘as many as 100 attorneys with many different defendants or plaintiffs, the possibility of multiple juries, and the need to process, store, and retrieve huge volumes of testimony, exhibits and evidence.’”
What Vanover says Hansbrough is not mentioning is that the NCSC advises that “caution, however, should be exercised in consideration of a multi-defendant courtroom because most communities do not need such a facility. This may be a once in a lifetime event.”
Regarding the courtrooms that are not mega-sized, NCSC states: “Non-jury trial courtrooms will generally require 1,100 to 1,400 square feet; jury trial courtrooms will require 1,340 to 1,600 sq. ft.”
Hansbrough has provided a list of county courtroom “needs” to the county commission as follows:
Division I: Currently 1967 sq. ft., Hansbrough says the “need” is 3,000 sq. ft.
Division II: Currently 1114 sq. ft., Hansbrough says the “need” is 2080 sq. ft.
Division III: Currently 1010 sq. ft., Hansbroug says the “need” is 1936 sq. ft.
Division IV: Currently 850 sq. ft., Hansbrough says the “need” is 1936 sq. ft.
Division V: Currently 1,400 sq. ft., Hansbrough says the “need” is 1936 sq. ft.
Division VI: Currently in Platte County Commission meeting room pending renovation of space in courthouse; Hansbrough says the “need” is 2080 sq. ft.
Division VII for a treatment court judge that Hansbrough says she anticipates in 2024 or 2025: Hansbrough says the need is 1,936 sq. ft.
Division VIII for an additional associate circuit court judge that Hansbrough says she anticipates in 2025: Hansbrough says the need is 1936 sq. ft.
Fricker remarked that commissioners find Hansbrough’s list of desired courtroom sizes more about “wants” than it is “needs.”
Vanover again emphasizes regarding courtrooms that are not mega-sized, the NCSC recommends courtrooms sized from 1100 sq. ft. to 1400 sq. ft., considerably smaller than those sizes on Hansbrough’s ‘needs’ list.
Vanover, like Fricker, believes Hansbrough’s listed sizes are more than what the county needs.
“Judge Hansbrough’s summary of Platte County courtroom space needs sheet says all of our courtrooms need to be at least 1936 sq. ft. In other words, all the Platte County courtrooms would need to be enlarged to nearly the same size as our current largest courtroom.”
JUDGES HAVE HIRED
A LAW FIRM
Fricker said a recent paperwork discovery by Vanover “underscores the animosity going on here” from judges toward the county commission.
Vanover explained it this way: “We recently discovered the judges have been consulting with a Jefferson City law firm for more than a year regarding budget and issues with the county commission. The judges are lawyers but they felt the need to spend almost $4,000 in taxpayer money to have a Jefferson City law firm help them.”
The Jefferson City law firm of Cook, Vetter, Doerhoeff and Landwehr advertises that it has experience with the Judicial Finance Committee, which is where budget disputes between judges and commissioners are litigated, Vanover said.
A bill from the law firm for services provided to Platte County judges includes items listed under “circuit court budget issues” and the invoice lists apparent advice from the law firm to Platte County judges on items such as courthouse building maintenance requirements, a call with a judge to another county to discuss issues and strategy, legal advice on court budget estimates and operational needs.
“This is a disturbing development,” Vanover said of his discovery that the judges have engaged legal counsel for guidance in discussions with the county commissioners. He said the judges had not told commissioners they had hired counsel and county commissioners did not know until Vanover found the invoice among some routine payments.
“The county commission has to review payments from various departments even when we don’t have discretion on the payments,” Vanover said, explaining it was in that review that he found the judges’ connection to the Jefferson City law firm.
“It is disturbing that we’ve been dealing with judges on budget issues for months and the whole time they’ve had a Jefferson City law firm giving them advice and we didn’t know,” Vanover told The Landmark last week.
Vanover described the county commission’s meeting with judges last Wednesday, Oct. 18 as “heated.” It was the day after Fricker had advised the public safety committee that county commissioners would not accept a recommendation of a new courthouse.
“Scott told the committee that their task was to come up with solutions for inmate detention and if they recommended on some other topic it’s going nowhere,” Vanover said.
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