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Humboldt supervisors consider courtroom, law library issues

Judges and local attorneys all use those facilities

DAKOTA CITY — The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors reviewed a list of courtroom items needing attention at Monday’s meeting. The list came from Magistrate Greg Stoebe.

“The courtroom is in critical need of electrical service upgrades,” Stoebe said. “The receptacles which were put in the courtroom are the original 1939 installments and do not address the electronic needs for computers, amplifiers, etc in the 21st Century.”

The air conditioning system is antiquated and noisy. When the compressor and heat exchanger kick in the noise is so great it drowns out voices in the courtroom. The equipment might date back to the mid-1960s.

The condition of the judge’s bench also needs to be addressed. The work space is too small to accommodate computer screens, keyboards, and other items required in recent years.

“The judges’ chambers simply look shabby,” Stoebe wrote.

The carpet needs to be replaced in every room and several of the chairs need replacing.

The law library is too small to accommodate the Westlaw terminal, which is an online legal research service. A critical need of the library is the restoration of the Iowa Code Annotated, which is an encyclopedia of law, and the Northwestern Reporter Case Reporting Service. Many of the judges use these services and the law library should also be made available to the general public and prisoners, Stoebe said. If those services are restored the Westlaw terminal would not be needed, he said.

County Attorney Jon Beaty spoke with the board about these concerns Monday. About five judges use the courtroom and they all use the law library as well as attorneys, he said. The Westlaw is a really good legal search program which the county pays for, but where the terminal is located there is no control over what the public is researching, Beaty said.

“I don’t have time to babysit people in the law library or teach them how to use Westlaw,” he said.

Also, one of the two computers is slow and there is no printer.

Beaty recommended bringing the books back. They are easier to use and monitor. Maybe in five years or so the books will no longer be needed “but we are not there yet,” he said.

Trying to fix all the things on the list would cost a ton of money, Beaty said.

Bruce Reimers, the chairman of the Board of Supervisors, asked why it’s the county’s responsibility to update the computers.

“Isn’t it the state’s computers?” he asked.

“It is kind of like security if we put a guard up there we have to pay for it,” Supervisor Carl Mattes said.

“For now I think we should buy the law books that he is requesting,” Supervisor David Lee said. “You can control the books better than computer access.”

Lee said he would like to see a cost comparison between the books and the online service for next year’s budget. The other supervisors agreed.

The board voted to purchase the books with Underberg voting against.

“It’s a lot of money for something that I would say probably is not overused,” Underberg said. “I don’t think that is the right way to go. I think we are going backwards.”

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