Plastic seals off part of the Hancock County Prosecutor’s Office after potential air quality concerns were discovered.
Submitted photo
HANCOCK COUNTY – On a typical weekday, the Hancock County Prosecutor’s Office is bustling with lawyers heading back and forth to the courthouse and other employees working to uphold justice and public safety.
On Friday morning, however, it was mostly empty. Part of the property was sealed off, blocking where rotting wood and harsh odors were discovered while officials awaited the results of air quality tests.
It’s just one of the issues that have been mounting in the building, the core of which is over a century old. A plan has been in place to move the office to a different property, but renovations are needed in the new location before that can occur. The building’s closure, which officials hope is temporary, culminates what a frustrated Hancock County Prosecutor Brent Eaton calls years of disregard from elected decision-makers.
“This is an absolute disaster,” Eaton said in his office Friday morning, window open, ceiling fan spinning overhead to circulate the air. “It’s a disgrace. I’m livid about where this is. This is the end result of decades of neglect, and everybody kicking the can down the road, and everybody wanting to do something else. Well, here we are.”
Eaton noted his office had been asking county officials for an extended period of time for assistance with renovations due to deterioration within the building’s bathrooms, adding that floors in them appeared to be near collapse. Workers came out on Wednesday, he continued, when they started on one of the bathrooms and discovered rotted wood and mold after peeling back vinyl. That released “an overwhelming smell of sewage” in the office as well as another unpleasant smell, Eaton said, causing nausea and coughing among employees. It ultimately prompted the decision to close the office and have the staff of over 20 work from home.
An air quality professional visited Wednesday evening and collected samples throughout the building, which Hancock County Commissioners President John Jessup helped arrange. An air scrubber was also brought in to push air out the back of the building.
Eaton said the core of the building was constructed about 130 years ago and that it’s been added onto over the decades. It served as the county jail for most of its existence, and became the prosecutor’s office in the 1980s.
During his seven years as prosecutor, Eaton said the building has undergone fixes stemming from multiple issues. Part of a ceiling collapsed, nearly falling on a lawyer working at their desk. Bats have been discovered. Modern technology has outpaced electrical capabilities. Pipes have frozen, leading to no running water for days at a time. He added there’s no space to speak privately with crime victims and the building lacks accessibility for those with disabilities.
“If you do not have a functioning prosecutor’s office, you do not have public safety – period, full stop,” Eaton said. “I’m not picking on any isolated person, I’m not, and I certainly do appreciate what appear to be efforts to try to get things sorted out now, and I certainly appreciate having somebody come and test the air that night, but this is the end result of decades of neglect from people making those decisions. You cannot defend where we are. It is indefensible. … It is impossible to make a decision and to argue that you’re serious about putting the public first and public safety first if your prosecutor’s office is literally crumbling down around the people that are supposed to work here.”
He credited his staff for how they’re adapting to the recent closure and able to continue fulfilling their responsibilities.
“I can’t say enough good things about the dedication and the heart of the people that work here, of how dedicated they are, how proud I am of all of them, and how incredibly demoralizing it is that we are here,” he said.
County officials recently approved a general obligation bond issue of over $5 million, part of which is intended to go toward renovating what is currently the county’s community corrections building in order to accommodate the future prosecutor’s office. Community corrections is planned to be moved to the county’s old jail after renovations there.
But when all of that will get underway remains unknown. The county commissioners have yet to determine how to handle construction management for the work after dismissing a company tasked with that responsibility following the leaders’ impasse over whether they properly hired the firm.
The results of the air quality test for the prosecutor’s office were not available by press time Friday. Jessup said if no environmental issues are determined, the prosecutor’s office will likely remain where it is until the community corrections building is ready for it. If environmental issues are determined, he said, a temporary relocation would be necessary, possibly to available space in the community corrections building.
Jessup said he fully agrees with Eaton’s comments about officials putting off resolving issues with the building housing the prosecutor’s office.
“I do hope the incident will point out to the other decision-makers that we need to continue moving forward with stuff we have been talking about literally for a decade for the employees of Hancock County,” Jessup said.
