Washington County Courthouse access no longer monitored

Access to the Washington County Courthouse is no longer monitored.

County Auditor Dan Widmer said Friday that a decision was made to no longer keep a deputy posted at the courthouse entrance to monitor the number of people in the building.

'On Wednesday, we ran into a situation where no deputies would have been available to monitor the entrance,” Widmer said. 'We knew at some point we would no longer have someone at the door.”

He said he discussed the matter with the other county department heads in the building, and they agreed to see how traffic goes without a door monitor.

In addition to the staffing issue, the department heads expressed concerns about people having to wait outside in the cold weather.

'We're going to try it to see how it goes along,” Widmer said.

While there will no longer be a deputy monitoring the entrance, the two-customer-per-office restrictions will remain in place.

'We're going to leave it up to the offices to make sure they don't get too many people,” Widmer said. 'We might, at some later point, go back to restricting the number of people in the building.”

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the courthouse closed to the public in March and did not reopen until July 21.

A deputy had been posted at the door limiting the number of people in the building since the July reopening.