Week of  3/13/02
   
 
 
Stevens wants justice plan in place before election
By Scott McLeod
Jim Stevens hopes to get the justice center project under way before he leaves office, the county board chairman said last week.

“I’m hoping to start it before I go out,” said Stevens, who is not seeking re-election.

The question of whether the current board should proceed with the controversial $30 million project (a new justice center, a parking garage, a new jail and a renovation of the existing historic courthouse) or hold off until a new board is elected is one that many running for county board are raising. Some say the election will, in effect, be a referendum on the project. Those who win will do so because they represent the will of the county’s electorate.

The first part of the project won approval last week when county commissioners voted 3-1 to tell architects to develop construction plans for the Branner Avenue parking garage. That $4 million project will be partially paid for by the town of Waynesville, which offered $2.5 million toward the parking in exchange for the county keeping the justice center downtown.

If all proceeds as scheduled, the 370-space garage could be completed by December of this year.

“We’re gonna need the parking as early as we can get it,” said Stevens.

Still, the two incumbent commissioners who are running for re-election complained last week that there are real problems in the way this project is proceeding and in the way county business is being handled. The vote taken on March 4 to proceed with the parking garage was not on the county’s agenda for the meeting.

“We’ve asked for nothing to be voted on unless it is on the published agenda,” said Commissioner Wade Francis, who cast the lone vote against proceeding with the parking garage.

The discussion of the parking garage was added to the county’s agenda by Assistant County Manager Rick Honeycutt during the meeting, a move which is legal. However, some boards have a policy of not voting on items that are added to the agenda, thereby providing the public a chance to attend when important votes are taking place. Francis said the way it was handled cut the public out of the process.

Commissioner Mary Ann Enloe missed the March 4 meeting because she and County Manager Jack Horton were at a conference. On her return trip with Horton, she claims he did not explain what happened during the commissioners’ meeting when she asked him about it.

“It seems I was deliberately not told. I don’t want to see a pattern of deception, and I am very disappointed. Why wasn’t it on the agenda since our county manager had left instructions for Mr. Honeycutt? I am really disturbed by all this,” said Enloe.

In order to build a justice center downtown, all parking on the grounds of the current courthouse will likely be lost during construction. With a parking garage, a future board will still have the ability to change the scope of the justice center project if they desire, said Stevens.

Stevens said a decision two weeks ago to ask architects to scale back the size of the justice center may have been a mistake. He visited Jackson County’s justice center last week and talked to government officials there who told him Haywood should build all the shell space it can, said Stevens.

“That got me worried that reducing the justice center by that 30-foot section may not be the right way to go,” said Stevens. “I’m having some second thoughts on that.”

Drawings presented two weeks ago by HLM Architects were for a 104,000-square-foot justice center with about 10,000 square feet of shell space for future growth. Commissioners sent the architects back to Orlando with orders to cut out the shell space and reduce the size of the building.