Grant County moving forward on district court position

MOSES LAKE - Grant County is planning to renovate the district court building in Moses Lake in preparation for the third district court judge.

The third judge position was approved by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Chris Gregoire in 2011. Once the bill was approved, the county had two years to fill the position.

The new judge is expected to help alleviate some of the case load the two judges and commissioners face at the moment, Judge Janis Whitener-Moberg said.

"We are trying to handle more than we have the bodies to process," she said. "Then this time of year the case load really kicks up."

The judges and commissioners are hoping to renovate the existing district court building on Wheeler Road, so it contains a courtroom with a jury room and jury box for trials, and a hearing room.

"We will do all of our jury trials in Moses Lake," she said. "(Currently) we do not have a place for our jurors to be. They're standing around in the foyer upstairs (on the third floor of the courthouse.) They're commingling with defendants, attorneys and witnesses."

District court handles anyone charged with misdemeanors and gross misdemeanors, Whitener-Moberg said. The court presently holds trials during the first week of the month.

The new courtroom should be able to house the jurors separate from people involved in the trials, Whitener-Moberg said.

The change will prevent potential jurors from hearing items about the case outside of the trial.

The commissioners also have received complaints about people not having a place to sit and not having enough parking, Commissioner Cindy Carter said.

"We have an architect on board. It should be fairly quick," Whitener-Moberg said. "There are no bearing walls to worry about. They can come in and gut it. The only issue is the courtroom itself needs high ceilings ... We've pretty much have drawn up two or three options as far as plans."

As part of the plan, Grant County Emergency Management is moving to the courthouse in Ephrata, Carter said. They are taking the space presently occupied by the Grant County Sheriff's Office.

Once the new space is finished, the commissioners will appoint the new judge, Carter and Whitener-Moberg said. The position will open to a vote in a following election.

"We've been slowly getting letters of interest," Carter said.

Whitener-Moberg hopes the project will be ready for the bidding process within 60 days, she said.

"Hopefully we can look at having something done on this substantially by the end of the year," she said.