CHELSEA, MI - Is a 120-year-old downtown building in Chelsea designed as a bank fit to hold court hearings and other legal proceedings?
After past incidents that have put court staff at risk and studies that have shown no way to provide adequate security screening, among other issues, the answer from Washtenaw County officials is no.
As a result, required in-person hearings for criminal cases and traffic offenses in the 14A-3 District Court’s jurisdiction — covering Chelsea, Dexter and western Washtenaw County townships — shifted at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to a courthouse in Saline, with many hearings conducted over Zoom.
The future of the ornate, fieldstone bank-turned-courthouse at 122 South Main St. in Chelsea sparked debate at a Monday, Feb. 7 meeting of the Chelsea City Council, where county officials briefed the city on the building.
While there’s no immediate plan to close the courthouse, there are outstanding questions about how it will be used in the future, county Director of Strategic Planning Andrew DeLeeuw told city leaders in his presentation.
The stakes of that conversation are high for Jason Maciejewski, the county commissioner representing District 1, a large northwestern swath of Washtenaw County.
He pointed to the scarcity of county service centers west of Zeeb Road.
“We’ve got to have a court presence in the City of Chelsea and working with the people in the western part of the county,” Maciejewski said.
Complicating matters are the overlapping official jurisdictions at the courthouse in Chelsea, owned and funded by Washtenaw County, but whose operations are determined by the District Court administration, a separate branch of government.
Courts personnel have “no intention” to move out of the Chelsea courthouse, unless requested to by the county or the city, 14A District Court Administrator, Lisa Fusik, said in an email.
While not hosting in-person court proceedings, the building is open on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to allow residents to file paperwork, pay fines, resolve tickets and inquire about their cases.
“It is our intention to continue that model,” Fusik said.
Old bank building ‘not suitable for a courthouse’
The Chelsea courthouse, once the Chelsea Savings Bank, dates back to 1901, when it was then called “the finest bank building between Chicago and Detroit” in media reports.
Washtenaw County has owned it since 1968, when it became a courthouse.
But, Fusik said, studies from the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office and Michigan State Court Administrative Office have found it is “not suitable for a courthouse” because its layout doesn’t allow adequate security screening.
There are other issues, she said, declining to elaborate so not to compromise the building’s safety as it currently operates.
Those problems have pushed in-person hearings to the 14A-4 District Court building in Saline, constructed in 2008.
But that building is “bursting at the seams” without adequate storage or space, Fusik said, adding there has always been a plan to expand the Saline courthouse.
DeLeeuw told Chelsea leaders plans for that expansion are in their final stages, and would add an additional courtroom and space. The proposal would have to be OK’d by the county board, which has not yet reviewed it, he said.
“The future of the Chelsea courthouse is somewhat independent of what happens in Saline,” DeLeeuw said.
Washtenaw County is set to embark on an extensive inventory of its 23 buildings and other leased spaces across the area, to shape a strategic plan around how the facilities should be used and where they should be located in the future, DeLeeuw said.
County officials have heard from Chelsea and other communities in the western area of the county about a lack of county service centers, and the process will involve engagement with local governments and residents countywide, DeLeeuw promised.
Could a western Washtenaw service center be the answer?
Maciejewski has floated the idea of a “western service center” that could combine court operations with county departments at an accessible location to the communities he represents.
For the commissioner, that could mean using the old bank building in Chelsea, or another location, as long as there’s no shutdown of court operations in the area.
“My position on this is I don’t want to see every single activity that’s currently occurring in the Chelsea courthouse move to Saline,” he said.
In the meantime, the commissioner is hosting a Feb. 23 virtual townhall, where the courthouse and other issues will be discussed, with Chelsea Mayor Jane Pacheco and county officials in attendance.
“What we want to come out of this with is a solution that improves what we have today,” Maciejewski told Chelsea leaders on Monday.
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