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Westmoreland revives proposal for new courthouse

Security concerns lead Westmoreland supervisors and law-enforcement officials to again consider building new courthouse

Date published: 10/15/2009

BY FRANK DELANO

New concerns over court safety have again prodded the Westmoreland County Board of Supervisors to consider building a new courthouse in Montross.

“We’re going to do something,” Board Chairman Darryl E. Fisher said yesterday after an hour-long, closed-door meeting of the supervisors, four judges, the sheriff and two sheriff’s officers.

In 2007, the supervisors paid a Charlottesville architect $25,000 to come up with a concept for a new judicial center that would also provide space for the offices of the sheriff and commonwealth’s attorney. But the planning lagged because of the death of a former judge and concerns about funding.

Since then, new judges, new supervisors and a new sheriff have taken office. A second session of the juvenile and domestic relations court now also sits in a small office in the English Building when space is unavailable in building’s two other courtrooms.

Planning for a new courthouse will now resume to include the new space requirements and the ideas of new officials, County Administrator Norm Risavi said.

The new impetus was apparently prompted by a recent security assessment of county courts. Three courts—circuit, general district and JDR—now compete for space with county offices in the English Building in Montross.

The report by the Virginia Judicial Security Initiative and the Virginia Center for Policing Innovation was not made public, but Risavi released an Oct. 8 letter from Circuit Judge Harry T. Taliaferro III, who wrote that “major security shortcomings highlight the obvious need for construction of a new court facility.”

To learn more about the judge's concerns, read Friday's Free Lance-Star.

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Date published: 10/15/2009