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Court panel looks outside Bay
By NAN PATTON EHRBRIGHT______________________
TIIE SUN HERALD
BAY ST. LOUIS — The Hancock County Courthouse Committee says the new courthouse should be built outside the city.
But the Board of Supervisors will have the final decision on where the courthouse will be built.
“There was some talk of adding on to this (existing) courthouse, but I think everyone shot it down,” Mike Necaise, committee mem-
ber and a former Chancery Court clerk, said during Tuesday’s committee meeting.
“I think we have got to look for a structure that will meet the needs and growth of this county. Eighty percent of the growth will be north of 1-10,” he said.
County seat has moved before
It’s easy to figure out the best location in terms of the center of the population, said Charles Garrison, a retired architect with experience in courthouse site selection and design.
“But the history and the romance and the pol-
itics enter into it, bigtime,” he said.
The county seat of government has been moved before, but downtown lawyers and shop owners say moving it now is a bad idea.
“We would all be affected if they moved the courthouse because we get a lot of traffic from that,” said Donna Davis, president of the Downtown Merchants’ Association.
A May 1994 Gulf Regional Planning Commission report, prepared for a prior courthouse committee, projected that migration from New Orleans, gaming and tourism development and increased activity at Stennis Space Center,
would bring substantial growth to the coui during the next 10 years.
At that time, the county occupied ab< 36,785 square feet in the courthouse, tax offi purchasing office and youth court.
Since then, the county has taken over thi offices next to the purchasing office and spi about $630,000 for a new court annex build on the U.S. 90 service road.
Based on population increases during the p
Please see Court, B-2