Umatilla County is putting together plans to build a new Pendleton courthouse that would allow the local circuit court to have its own building rather than sharing a space with the county government. With a new round of financial help from the Oregon Legislature, local officials expect to address two questions: How much will the new courthouse cost and when would it be built?
Tucked away in a $1.1 billion funding bill passed at the end of the 2023 legislative session was $100,000 to pay for plans to replace the Umatilla County Courthouse. Umatilla County Commissioner Dan Dorran said the money should help the county and a committee of local officials complete plans to move courthouse operations from its current location in downtown Pendleton to a new site on the east edge of town near the Umatilla County Jail.
“I think that we’ve started identifying the moving parts that need to be plugged in for sure,” he said.
Dorran said one of the next steps will be to take their plans to the public.
The Umatilla County Courthouse in Pendleton, Ore.
Antonio Sierra / OPB
Why the court wants to move
Built in the mid-1950s, the Umatilla County Courthouse is relatively young in a state where some courthouses are well over the century mark. The three-courtroom building is further aided by a two-courtroom facility in Hermiston that opened in 2007.
But in a February report to the Legislature, Umatilla County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Hill wrote that the Pendleton building is “unsuitable for courthouse operations.”
Hill admitted that the facility was “well maintained,” but it lacks space.
Umatilla County’s population has doubled in the 70 years since the courthouse was built, and as time has gone on, the county government has taken over space once used by the circuit court, he wrote.
“The Pendleton Courthouse cannot be remodeled without ejecting the rest of the County offices,” he wrote. “The footprint of the courthouse and the available ground make it impossible to add on to the courthouse. Remodel is simply not possible to accommodate the needs.”
Hill wrote that there is not adequate space for jury selection at the courthouse and the court often has to contend with the board of commissioners for use of their meeting space. There is no dedicated entrance for criminal defendants, meaning they have to use the same doors and halls as the public and staff. And the holding cell for defendants opens to the main hallway, putting them in view of anyone walking by.
“The courthouse is inadequately designed for the purposes of being able to protect the necessary rights of the defendant prior to trial and is ripe for mistrial due to the way the building is designed,” he wrote.
According to Hill, the Hermiston courthouse doesn’t alleviate all of the space constraints in Pendleton. While it has enough room for jury selection, the two courtrooms are too small for multi-party trials. The lack of space at both courthouses was laid bare during the early years of the coronavirus pandemic, Hill wrote, when people didn’t have enough room to stay socially distant.
Should the state and county come together to build a new courthouse in Pendleton, the building would host the county’s jury trials while Hermiston would handle cases that only need a judge.
Current plans call for the Umatilla County District Attorney’s Office to move with the court while the county government would have its own building. Dorran said the county is still considering its options, but it could stay in the current courthouse and take over the building entirely once the court moves out.
Who will pay?
Even though the current proposal would put county and court services in separate buildings, Dorran said state law would still require the county to cover half of the costs of a new courthouse and ongoing security.
While the county could lobby the state to change the law to cover the entire cost, Dorran said local funding options aren’t certain yet. One option on the table is sending a bond measure to the Umatilla County ballot, although Dorran has his concerns.
“We’ve seen other counties in the state where the voters have not accepted the responsibility of the state courthouses,” he said. “And that puts everybody in a very bad position.”
Recent elections for new courthouses have been mixed. While Crook County voters passed a bond to build a new courthouse last year, a Lane County courthouse bond failed in 2019.
Dorran said the county has already targeted a construction site on open land near the Umatilla County Jail. This would allow the courthouse to stay in the county seat in Pendleton and make it easier for criminal defendants to go from the jail to court.
Dorran said the next round of plans will produce a total cost estimate and a timeline for the project. If local officials finish plans quickly enough, Dorran said the county and court could return to the Legislature as soon as 2024 with a funding proposal.