Kane County eyes Judicial Center campus expansion

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Updated: March 3, 2012 11:32AM

GENEVA — With every room in the Kane County Judicial Center campus in use — even the multi-purpose room is now serving as a courtroom — county officials are looking for ways to alleviate some of the congestion that may come in the next five to 10 years.

Chief Judge Robert Spence and Kane County Facilities Director Tim Harbaugh spoke with the County Board Committee of the Whole this week about options to satisfy the space issue at the current locations.

“The long term focus,” Spence said, “was to consolidate all judicial functions.”

But now, the circuit clerk’s office and the county’s traffic courtroom are housed in a building on Randall Road in St. Charles, about a mile away from the Judicial Center on Route 38 west of Geneva.

Harbaugh recommended that the county begin looking at moving forward with a $500,000 planning study, evaluating an addition to the judicial center campus.

The funding may not be available to move forward in building the addition right now. But if the planning phase were completed, the county may be eligible for grant funding, County Board members said.

There has been talk about using the Old Courthouse on Third Street in Geneva to handle divorce cases. But because each case typically involves parties coming in two vehicles, parking could quickly become an issue. Some court calls would involve as many as 100 vehicles.

Spence said that he could also look at expanding night court, but that alone would not solve the space constraint issue. There is currently a Wednesday night court call.

“Some people don’t want to take the time off work, and we fully realize that,” he said. “But that’s only going to absorb so many cases. You can’t have it every night of the week.”

Currently there is no evening court call for traffic court. It can be difficult to get police officers, and court personnel to the courtroom because of scheduling and overtime issues, Spence said.

“Police chiefs don’t want their officers to go at night for that reason,” he said.

Committee member T.R. Smith, R-Hampshire, said that he still wanted to see a better use of evening court.

“I think if people are assigned, and that’s part of their job, they’ll come,” he said.

The idea of finding another property in the area for judicial services also was raised, but committee member John Hoscheit, R-St. Charles, said that would be a bad idea. Kane is one of the few counties that do not have the circuit clerk on the court premises, and it causes problems with files going out to several locations, he said. It also means more security setups — one in the Third Street courthouse, one in the traffic court on Randall Road, and one at the Judicial Center.

The county should be working toward consolidating services in order to save money and not spreading them out, he said.

“The big picture consensus is that we have to consolidate,” Hoscheit said.