Posted on Oct 29, 2019
Allen County Commissioners are working on fixing the county's crumbling buildings.
Allen County owns 19 buildings encompassing 53,000 square feet which house 25 departments. Most of those buildings are old. Very old. Five of them were built more than 100 years ago. Commissioners Jay Begg and Cory Noonan told us during their State of the County Speech that these buildings are in need of major repairs. First up is the courthouse, which Begg says has some major issues. "We would like public to help us fine tune the plan. Anybody who wants to be part of that, please let us know. We'll take tours and try to get an understanding of what we need to do to stabilize this iconic building in our community and also be a functional building for the future." The county spent $1.5 million putting a new roof on the courthouse and now that the roof is no longer leaking, the inside can be renovated. Begg says the county will ask for a $5 million line of credit next year to fund the renovations on the courthouse and other buildings. 
The commissioners are proud of the brand new Juvenile Detention Center which was recently completed. Approximately half of the $7.2 million project was funded by the state. Begg says the county will have its portion of the project paid off next year.
Also at Monday's meeting, President Ken presented a check for $5,404.80 to the Lima Rotary Foundation. The funds came from member dues and donations to the scholarship fund.