The Athens County Sheriff’s Office needs more room.
Deputies have vehicles all throughout the city, the building is not up to code and Sheriff Pat Kelly wants out.
The sheriff’s office has worked out of its 13 W. Washington St. headquarters since the 1940s, and Kelly said the building is too small and needs to be upgraded.
In the spring, Athens County Commissioners looked at two possible locations on Columbus Road where Kelly’s offices could relocate, but they were not able to agree on which one to pick.
Since then, commissioner Charlie Adkins said relocating the office is not a top priority.
“In the last meeting with him about a month ago, he told us that he was satisfied with where he was,” Adkins said. “He did some remodeling and so I guess I assumed that when he made his statement at our meeting he was satisfied with where he was and we shouldn’t be rushing.”
But Kelly told a different story of last month’s meeting.
“I said I was satisfied to them sarcastically,” Kelly said. “Do I look like a satisfied sheriff? I basically said you’re not going to do anything anyway so I might as well be satisfied with where I’m at.”
Even though Kelly said his building is “too small,” “not handicap accessible” and has “little accessibility,” he added that he’s not going to pay attention to moving his office in the future.
“That was all just campaign rhetoric,” Kelly said of the commissioners, adding that they “have no intention of moving me.”
He added: “I’ve spent four years talking about it and we’ve had three or four good opportunities to move and the commissioners nixed each one, so it’s not on my radar anymore.”
The commissioners placed a bid on a building near Columbus Road in the spring, but the offer was rejected.
“They wanted $1.3 million and it sold for I think around $670,000 at auction,” Adkins said. “We didn’t bid $1.3 million because we didn’t think it was worth that much.”
Kelly said one of the biggest problems with his office is that it’s not handicap accessible, which he said is against the law.
“In the future, the (new sheriff’s office) will be up to code,” Adkins said, adding that he did not have a timetable for when that might happen and reiterated that the commissioners are not planning to act swiftly.
Ideally, Kelly said, he wants a large-scale office out of the city with an impound lot, a parking lot, a jail, a 911 system, a records retention building, a firing range and an EMS station.
“…It’s not a place to be, so if anybody thinks I’m happy that we didn’t get a new building,” he said, “they’re entirely wrong.”
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