Carter County continues to fight for new courthouse

VAN BUREN — The Carter County commission answered questions Friday about long delays in the construction of a new courthouse to replace an older one severely damaged during the May 2017 flood of the Current River.

Questions also arose about county finances and what appeared to be a lack of bidding on the costs to renovate the current courthouse location.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) obligated the funds in July for an $8.6 million grant for Carter County to build a new courthouse, with three-fourths of the funding coming from FEMA, 10% from the Missouri State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) and the rest from a community development block grant.

The old Carter County courthouse, closed but decorated for Christmas, is located in the downtown Van Buren area.DAR/Paul Davis

Residents, however, say not much has been done.

“We’re not moving along. It’s been two years (since the flooding) and nothing is any different than when $8.6 million was afforded to this county,” said former Presiding Commissioner Donald Black, who noted he has been questioned by residents about the matter and came to the commission on their behalf.

“When I go to meetings, I have a lot of people say ‘what is going on in Carter County,’” Black said.“What I’m wanting to know today is where we are, and is everything being followed the way it’s supposed to be, or are we jeopardizing the money by not bidding this out.”

Black questioned now-Presiding Commissioner Ron Keeney during Friday’s meeting about those delays, saying the citizens want to know what is going on.

“You guys know what we all went through. You hear rumors going around, and it’s been two years now,” he said.

“It’s all the hoops we’re jumping through,” countered Keeney. “We’ve got the building for bid next Friday to tear down (at the new site), and then our dirt work is ready. That’s where we’re at.”

That building is an old rock house on the site of the proposed new courthouse on Main Street. It sits about a mile east of downtown on a hillside out of the floodplain, which must be torn down.

The proposed site of a new Carter County courthouse sits on eight acres about a mile east of the downtown Van Buren area. Part of the construction process would be the demolition of an old house and removal of trees on the property.DAR/Paul Davis

Government red tape, Keeney said, was to blame for the delays.

“We’ve had to go through an environmental impact process for six months. We got that done, then they got another environmental deal we had to go through,” Keeney said. “It’s been red tape after red tape. We’ve got it all moving as fast as we can on our end. Our hands are tied.”

Compounding the problem is a fight with SEMA, which, Keeney said, has been a major issue.

“SEMA is giving us a fight right now. That’s our holdup,” Keeney said.

“We thought FEMA would take care of us, and then they changed things,” added Western District Commissioner Lynn Murdick.

According to County Clerk Leona Stephens, FEMA distributed Carter County’s grant money to build a new courthouse through a new “Section 428 pilot program.”

What FEMA wanted to do, she said, was pay differently than they had in the past, but SEMA didn’t want to do things that way.

Consequently, Stephens said, FEMA gave the money in mid-September to SEMA to distribute.

“That’s not typically how it works,” Stephens said.

The catch, Keeney said, is SEMA won’t give Carter County the money unless it also gets a loan elsewhere.

“SEMA wants us to go out and get a line of credit to get our money to build our building,” Keeney said.

“The county can’t just go out and borrow money,” explained Stephens, because doing so is against the law.

What the commission can do, she said, is get a tax advance loan. However, it would have to be fully repaid at the end of the year, something unfeasible.

“It’s a cash flow problem,” Stephens said.

Keeney and Murdick said they’ve been in contact with state senators and representatives and U.S. Rep. Jason Smith for help, but the process is slow.

Stephens said she also is frustrated at the pace of the project, which must be completed within two and a half years of grant obligation.

“How do you expect me to get this done in two and a half years when it takes six months to get the bidding process done on tearing down the old house,” she questioned.

Black also asked the commissioners about the county’s bank account, which, he said, is down to having a balance of $27,000.

In 2018, he said, there was $349,816 in it, of which $199,000 was available and not allocated.

Murdick said the downward trend is because the commission has had to spend some money and wait for reimbursements.

For instance, he said, it “took 88 days to get our money in here that we’ve already spent.”

Keeney also said the county had built that account back up to where it had been with recent deposits from reimbursements.

At the end of his questioning, Black asked that commissioners work harder to keep the public informed about what is going on.

“I wish you’d put something out there to reinforce the community and tell them,” he urged. “Can you print an update so everybody knows?”