County, state timelines differ on use of Bangor court space

BANGOR – While the state is talking in terms of years before it can construct a new court building in Bangor, Penobscot County officials already have plans for the space that the District Court currently occupies and are pressing for a much more abbreviated time frame.

The $37 million combined district and superior court building proposed for Exchange Street in Bangor is about four years away, State Court Administrator Ted Glessner said Wednesday.

At least one county official, already expressing doubt that the state will keep to its timeline, is pressing strongly for a quicker turnaround.

“In the final analysis we need the space and we can’t wait five years for it,” Penobscot County Commissioner Tom Davis said Tuesday during a regular meeting of the three-member panel.

Part of the delay by the state is that it will be at least a year, maybe longer, before the state court system can access the $3.5 million in bonds for the first stage of the project, which includes acquiring the land and doing the architectural and engineering work.

“If there’s anything we can do to shorten that time frame, we’ll do it,” Glessner said. But with it expected to take a year to design the project and two years for construction, Glessner doesn’t see very many places where time can be trimmed.

With Penobscot County officials already in discussions with a different division of state government – the Maine Department of Public Safety – to jointly locate state police and county emergency dispatch services, the court’s departure is taking on an increased sense of immediacy.

“Rather a lot of it hangs on the decision of the court system,” Tom Robertson, director of the Penobscot County Emergency Management Agency, said Wednesday.

As a way to reduce costs and improve its aging radio system, state public safety officials are looking to partner with other agencies, as well as local and county governments, and in recent months approached the county about the possibility of a joint dispatching location. The state is looking at a time frame to relocate in 12 to 18 months, officials have said.

Later this month, state officials expect to send out a request for proposals to identify locations offering 4,000 to 6,000 square feet of available space in Bangor that could accommodate dispatching centers, Lt. Don Pomelow, interim director for the state’s communications bureau, said Wednesday.

The county has suggested that the District Court building that it owns would be a prime location, although Pomelow has said the state will evaluate all possible sites, including the Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center, formerly the Bangor Mental Health Institute.

During the past weekend, Robertson drafted plans detailing use of one of two district courtrooms and a judge’s chambers that will be renovated to make way for the Penobscot Regional Communications Center, which currently operates out of the courtroom basement.

The redesign would take up about 5,000 square feet or about half of the space in use in the District Court building and enough space to also accommodate the state police dispatch center.

Even before the draft plans were worked on, county officials broached the subject of renovating the district courtroom last week in a meeting with Glessner and other state court officials.

Glessner said the state will certainly try to accommodate the county, but he acknowledged that it is a lack of space that is largely prompting the courthouse construction project in the first place.

“We’ll do what we can to cooperate with the county, but I’m not sure how we’d do with less space,” Glessner said.

County officials have suggested that a district courtroom be relocated to the probate courtroom at the nearby Penobscot County Courthouse, although Glessner said such a move creates many logistical problems and may not provide the needed space.

How to proceed has divided the county commissioners, with Davis seeking a more blunt tactic and County Commissioners Peter Baldacci and Stephen Stanley seeking more diplomatic approaches.

“We own the building and … I think we ought to be moving in our direction, but also at the same time we’ve got to use a little finesse and work together with them a little bit,” Stanley said during the Tuesday meeting.

Davis retorted that he liked finesse, then quipped, “Anybody got a baseball bat they can loan me?”