The Grand Isle County Courthouse is now open five days a week for limited in-person services, more than six months after state officials first reduced its operating hours.
But the North Hero building remains closed for in-person hearings and trials because it does not have a mechanical ventilation system, which state officials have said the courthouse needs to keep those proceedings safe during the pandemic.
Some local officials, including Grand Isle State’s Attorney Douglas DiSabito, welcomed the return of Monday-to-Friday service that started Feb. 28, but said they are frustrated that hearings and trials on the Champlain Islands continue to be held remotely.
Vermont court officials have known for more than a year that the courthouse needs a ventilation system, DiSabito said, but still have not given him a clear timeline for when the building could fully reopen. He said Grand Isle is Vermont’s only county, other than Essex County, that does not have at least one fully operational courthouse today.
“I just don’t feel that there’s an urgency on the part of the court administration to make this happen for Grand Isle County,” DiSabito said.
Scott Griffith, the state’s interim court administrator, wrote in an email that the judiciary has worked with a vendor to design an HVAC system for the courthouse and requested about $590,000 from the Legislature to purchase and install it.
He estimated that, once that funding is approved, it would be 12 to 15 months before the project is completed.
“In the meantime,” Griffith said, “Judiciary staff review all revisions and updates to guidance released from public health authorities to ensure that access to buildings for in-person court proceedings is as broad as safely possible.”
Sen. Dick Mazza, D-Grand Isle, said he expects funding for the project to be included in the state’s 2022 capital bill, noting that installing an HVAC system in North Hero is “a must.” That bill is currently in the Senate Committee on Institutions, which Mazza sits on.
In December, the Judiciary requested about $5.7 million from the Legislature for either new or upgraded HVAC systems at a dozen courthouses, including North Hero’s.
The Legislature previously appropriated $800,000 to the Judiciary to plan and design this HVAC work during its 2021 session, Gregg Mousley, the agency’s chief of finance and administration, wrote in a December memo, though officials have not used most of that funding because they did not get designs in time to do so.
Griffith said that, to make sure Grand Isle County’s trials are held in a timely manner, the judiciary may seek to move some of its trials to courthouses in other counties.
DiSabito and Joanne Batchelder, one of Grand Isle County’s two assistant judges, both have concerns with that idea. DiSabito said cases likely would not need to be transferred if the state had already invested in renovating the Islands’ courthouse.
“It wouldn’t be fair by any means,” Batchelder said, citing the time it can take Islanders to drive back and forth to services in Franklin and, especially, Chittenden County.
DiSabito said in an email he has multiple cases that are ready for trial — some of which predate the pandemic — involving victims whose patience is “wearing very thin.”
“These delays are only revictimizing them — solely because of their residency,” he said.
The Grand Isle County Courthouse, built in 1824, is one of the oldest still functioning in Vermont. Batchelder said state officials have attempted to close down the courthouse before, but Islanders have always opposed those efforts.
Security coverage had been an issue at the courthouse since last summer, when the Grand Isle County Sheriff’s Department told court officials it no longer had the capacity to staff the building. At the beginning of August, then-Court Administrator Patricia Gabel announced the building would be closed to the public three days a week.
State officials did not immediately line up a full-time security replacement, citing issues with staffing at the sheriff’s department that were not unique to Grand Isle County.
At the time, DiSabito and other local officials raised concerns that limiting access to the building, even temporarily, could be dangerous for people seeking relief from abusive situations.
For instance, those who wanted to drop off court paperwork in person — including filings that involve emergency relief from abuse, stalking and sexual assault — needed to travel to courthouses in Franklin County.
The North Hero courthouse reopened for limited in-person services four days a week in October, with security provided by an armed state court officer.
In an email to DiSabito on Feb. 17, which the state’s attorney shared with VTDigger, Griffith wrote the state now plans to have a deputy from Securitas, which is a private security firm, provide coverage at the courthouse.
Griffith said the Chittenden County Sheriff’s Office had agreed to send a deputy who was paid the state to assist with security there, too.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Grand Isle courthouse open five days a week, but trials still held remotely.