To put it simply- there’s not enough room to turn around in the Boone County Courthouse annex and officials met last week to decide what to do about it.

The county courthouse annex, located in the old Boone County Jail was sufficiently large to house the commission, the law enforcement division of the sheriff’s department and a few smaller offices for many years. The problem of overcrowding became more pronounced after the addition of the offices of Boone County Family Court Judge Cynthia Jarrell were added, along with the other support offices necessary to conduct family court business.

On court days, families were forced to stand outside, often in the rain to await their hearing.

Attorneys had little or no room to speak with their clients, and then there were the problems with state law. Several months ago, Judge Jarrell wrote a letter to Boone County Commissioners pointing out to them that according to state law, her offices were entitled to room to expand.

Her requests included private offices for herself and her staff, along with more meeting rooms for attorneys and clients. The Boone County Commission acknowledged the need for an expansion to the lower floors of the annex, but the question remained: ‘where to go?’

The only possible area of expansion is the fenced-off and long unused exercise yard of the jail.

“We could certainly expand into that area if everyone involved could come to an agreement,” County Administrator Jim Gore said.

Sheriff Rodney Miller recently told the Coal Valley News that he supports expansion of the building if his offices’ concerns are addressed. “I’m currently looking into what we would need in order to construct a larger holding area for prisoners in our offices,” the sheriff said. “We would also like to have more office space for our deputies and more room for storage.”

Last week, Judge Jarrell, Circuit Judge Will Thompson, 911 Director Greg Lay and Sheriff Miller met to hear how this expansion might proceed.

MADISON -The next step, according to Gore, is to determine the estimated costs for the expansion and then advertise for bids from architectural firms to formally prepare the plans.

“We aren’t quite sure how much it will cost to expand the offices, but the commission has a good idea,” Gore said. “We have been setting aside money for this project for a while now and we think right now that we have enough money ready to begin once an architect puts the final figures into the hands of commissioners.”

At this time, however, he declined to speculate on how much the Boone County Commission thinks the expansion will cost.