Cape County Commission takes step to consider new Jackson courthouse

County officials have taken the first step, though they caution that it's a preliminary one, that they believe would allow them to consider building a new centralized courthouse in Jackson instead of having government offices both there and in Cape Girardeau.

At its meeting Monday, the Cape Girardeau County Commission approved a resolution asking the state legislature to change language of a statute that requires the county to have a presence in courthouses in Jackson and Cape Girardeau. The law dictates specifically that, within Cape Girardeau County, the circuit court "shall" hold court in the courthouses at Jackson and at Cape Girardeau.

The resolution asks that the word "shall" be changed to "may," which commissioners believe would give them legal authority to have all county offices in Jackson.

"We're really just in the discussion stages of what we want to do," Commissioner Paul Koeper said. "But before we do anything, we need to have the flexibility of being able to combine offices and reduce costs instead of having offices spread out. Right now, we're tied to this statute, and we think we ought to have a little more control."

State Sen. Jason Crowell, R-Cape Girardeau, was at the meeting and told commissioners he would take the resolution to Jefferson City and work to get it changed.

Commissioner Jay Purcell is a proponent of building a new, centralized courthouse in Jackson. Cape Girardeau County is the only county in the state where offices are at separate locations, which he called a "duplication of services."

Purcell initially supported the idea to acquire the old federal building on Broadway as a "stopgap measure," so that county officials could address the "many shortcomings" of the Common Pleas Courthouse and its annex, where the county's collector, voter registration, assessor and juvenile offices are housed.

County workers have voiced concern about the Common Pleas courthouse, saying space is limited, that there are security issues and that it is not accessible to the disabled.

But Purcell said he started to re-evaluate his support of acquiring the federal building, believing that county officials should first figure out if it was cost-effective to support two separate county campuses that essentially do the same thing.

"Long term, I believe that we should be planning to build a courthouse in Jackson," he said, adding that he believes a majority -- if not all -- of the expense could come from cutting back to only one county courthouse. The Common Pleas Courthouse is owned by both the city of Cape Girardeau and the county.

Purcell said that the cost of renovating the former federal building in Cape Girardeau is in the millions. When that is taken into account, a new courthouse is all the more attractive, he said.

It's too early, Purcell said, to know whether the existing courthouse in Jackson would be torn down or if a new courthouse would be constructed at another site. But he said the county would look closely at several options and that there would be public input before any decision was made.

"I realize that this may be unpopular with some and that it will be a convenience issue for some," Purcell said. "But we should at least have a discussion about what's the most cost-effective and best use of taxpayer dollars."

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