Supervisors vote to move forward with facilities compromise

WASHINGTON — A plan to move only some county offices to the Orchard Hill Complex is moving forward.

Washington County supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to proceed with a compromise plan, which would tentatively relocate public health, IT department and county supervisor work spaces to the campus west of town, but leave the offices of the assessor, auditor, recorder, treasurer and GIS in the county courthouse.

The plan, which Supervisor Marcus Fedler called a “hybrid plan,” was one of three options supervisors discussed at a June 5 work session.

One of the options would have moved more county offices to Orchard Hill, while another would have moved county offices to the former Federation Bank building just off the Square.

Concerns about some of the details of the plan were raised, specifically regarding a proposal to utilize meeting space in the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) for Board of Supervisors meetings.

At the June 5 work session, Emergency Management Coordinator Marissa Reisen raised her concerns.

"It’s in a restricted-access facility, which means the public should not be in there (because) we’ve got dispatch in there, we don’t want people wandering around,” she said in an interview after the work session. “And the assumption that in a disaster, if we are using the EOC, that there wouldn’t be board meetings, is flat-out wrong. Because there’s likely decisions that would have to be made in a public meeting to approve some of the actions that we might have to take.”

Prior to Tuesday’s vote, Reisen again expressed her “disappointment” in plans for the board meeting room.

Supervisor Richard Young explained that nothing specific has been set.

“It doesn’t mean what was presented at the work session is what will actually be,” Young said. “Encite (the architecture firm working on the designs) hear the concerns about the use of the EOC.”

Fedler added that the specific plan will come with the next step.

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“The process now is getting into the nuts and bolts of what the plan should look like,” Fedler said.

The plan is estimated to cost the county $2.44 million.

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