By Ashley M. Casey
Staff Writer
The Cicero Town Court is staying put.
While the court had been slated to move with the Cicero Police Department to the former South Bay Fire Department building on Cicero Center Road, the town is looking instead to build an addition at town hall for the court.
Town Councilor Jon Karp, who is an attorney, said the town justices objected to moving the court off the Centro bus line. To do so, Karp said, would “hamper people’s access to the courts.”
“[Cicero Town Court] serves people from all over the county, not just Cicero,” Karp said. “A lot of our defendants … use the bus line because their license is suspended.”
Karp said the move also would have increased commute times for prisoner transport vans, attorneys and “pretty much anybody who is involved in the court system.”
Keeping the court at town hall also “keeps the essential functions of the town” in one place, Supervisor Mark Venesky said.
The town board voted June 28 to spend $2,500.00 from the building improvement fund reserve to William Taylor Architects, PLLC, for architectural services related to the study of an addition for the court. Venesky said Taylor told him adding on to town hall would cost roughly the same as renovating the South Bay building for the court’s occupancy. He estimated the cost of the addition at $400,000 to $450,000.
Venesky said the space that would have been the court’s new home will be used as cold storage for police department records. He said renovations are expected to take place over the winter with a goal of moving the police department in the first quarter of 2018.
