DOVER-FOXCROFT – Piscataquis County commissioners have waited patiently for months to get an update from state officials on the status of a new district court building in Dover-Foxcroft.

Apparently no update is warranted because talks have been halted on the project at the state level.

“The project is on hold,” Ted Glessner, state court administrator, announced Wednesday during a telephone interview.

Initially, state officials had planned to lump courthouse projects in Piscataquis, Washington and Penobscot counties together in one funding round, but it appears only the Penobscot project is on the fast track.

A location for the new facility in Bangor is expected to be announced on Friday.

The Washington County project appears to be in the slow lane.

While Glessner said he owed Piscataquis County commissioners a call to advise them of the status of the project, he added that he hoped both the county and the state still could come up with a resolution.

Any resolution will not come easily because the state and county are divided on how best to address the overcrowded and unsafe conditions.

The current district court building is considered to be cramped and inadequate for the court’s needs, and it presents safety issues, according to county officials.

When court is in session, the crowd spills out of the small courtroom into the lobby, onto the stairs and out onto the entrance ramp. Because of the lack of space, defendants and their accusers must sit near one another.

County officials and employees want a new district courthouse at an estimated $1 million cost and have offered county-owned land located across the present courthouse for the new building.

The state favors a reorganization of the Superior Court building on both floors and the construction of new space between the Superior Court building and the District Court at an estimated cost of $1.6 million.

This would place both courts under one roof. Court clerks now shuffle paperwork between two buildings for court proceedings.

“One of the issues now is we don’t want to have separate courts; we need to be under the same roof,” Glessner said. “It’s not a great arrangement now, so why we would spend money procedurally to make the situation worse?”

Glessner said he also has difficulty justifying a new stand-alone courthouse because the caseload is so low in Dover-Foxcroft.

“We realize our district court is a small one and that larger courts will receive the state’s attention before ours,” Commissioner Tom Lizotte said Wednesday. “We would just like them to be honest with us.”

He said the state has “dragged its feet” on the matter for eight years and noted that the last communication they had with Glessner was in June 2004.

Tearing the Superior Court building apart to fit the state’s needs is not the answer, Lizotte said.

“I haven’t met one person in Piscataquis County who thinks that’s a great idea,” he noted.

That option would displace the current office staff in the building during the construction and it would leave the county with no space for which to expand if more regionalized services are needed in the future, he said.

Lizotte said he hoped an agreement can be reached, but he added, “the ball is in their court.”