Emergency division moves to fairgrounds

EPHRATA - Grant County Emergency Management is moving to the fairgrounds to make room for a new district court judge.

Fairgrounds Manager Jerry Gingrich and Emergency Management Director Robert Schneider met with the Grant County commissioners recently to discuss moving from the Moses Lake building on Wheeler Road.

The county plans to expand district court into the space Emergency Management is presently using to make room for a second courtroom and several other changes. The remodel is intended to make room for a third district court judge.

Gingrich and Schneider discussed three options, including remodeling the Huck Fuller building, building a new structure and remodeling the old fair office and a conference room.

The commissioners agreed to move emergency management offices into the former fair office building and use the conference room as a emergency operations center for now.

"There are probably more than three. That was just the three that came to mind," Gingrich said. "Obviously the least expensive would be (the) conference room."

Schneider said the conference room is the same size as the present emergency operations center.

"If we needed to be out tomorrow and needed to be in another emergency operations space, this space would work," he said. "We'll leave all the walls up (in the old fair office) in the middle. We'll leave all the walls up except for some of the temporary walls ... so we have a public space because we do the signs, we do the ID cards."

Gingrich said the department plans to start moving onto the fairgrounds on Oct. 29.

"Short term we can go back to our original plan and go into the block building. Get that gutted on the 29th," Schneider said. "Get that gutted, clean it and start going through our punch list of what we need to do."

The department won't need to buy new equipment, he said.

The county may still remodel the Huck Fuller building for the emergency operations center later.

The electrical wiring needs to be upgraded to be used for emergency operations center, Schneider said.

"The nice thing on that building is you can remove the exterior walls and expose it," Gingrich said. "The Fuller building is just not designed to be an (emergency operations center.) ... (With) the option with the Huck Fuller building, we'll end up using either budgeted or bond money to upgrade the existing electrical, which, at some point, we as a county or the fairgrounds need to look at anyway. That building has been patchworked together."

The third option of building a new building, might be tied into upgrading the sheriff's station at the fairgrounds. Gingrich started researching different options for upgrading the building. Planning for the project recently started, he said.

Initial estimates for a 36-foot by 60-foot building are about $22,000, he said. The fairgrounds staff needs to build it, but it would include all the material.

The county could possibly put Emergency Management in the same building, Gingrich said.

Commissioner Carolann Swartz said using the fair office and the conference room seems to be the easiest transition for the department.

"Then the Huck Fuller building, I think that's a natural fit, that's going to take more work," she said. "Maybe that can be longer term."

Gingrich said he will determine how much it will cost to rewire the Huck Fuller building.