Amador County – The Amador County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday directed staff to get a list of county-owned properties and have the Property Committee work to assess them and determine if they are assets or liabilities, and work with the city of Jackson on zoning and building code.

General Services Director John Hopkins said Supervisor John Plasse, a member of the Property Committee along with Supervisor Richard Forster, which has been working with Hopkins, Assessor Jim Rooney and other officials, on a list of properties owned by the county. Hopkins said “we started with a list of 129 properties and we’ve gleaned it down to 75.” He said it would come down to which ones the county wants to sell, development, convey, lease or mothball.

Plasse requested the discussion Tuesday because he wanted to talk about all of the county-owned properties on Court Street in Jackson. He was approached after a Native Sons of the Golden West meeting, after the burning of 208 Court Street by Jackson Fire Department in a training exercise. He said two of the residential building with historic value might have a more lucrative use if blended into the surrounding historic residential neighborhood.

Supervisor Brian Oneto said they should consider proposals for projects, such as housing, shops and commercial, but “the football in the room is going to be the main Courthouse.” He said if it was the original Courthouse, it would be more valuable, but the main question is: “Can we afford to maintain it and sustain it?”

Hopkins recalled engineering and architecture studies done when the county tried to transfer the old Courthouse to the state for a court building. The state would not accept it for a public building due to the cost it would take to make it ADA compliant, and because of a seismic assessment. It rated as 6 on a seismic risk scale, with 7 being the worst, and it is basically “two un-reinforced concrete buildings under one façade.”

Supervisor Chairman Louis Boitano urged mothballing the old Courthouse, saying: “Some people think art deco is the cat’s meow. I’m not one of them.” But he would like to see the county’s lot on Water Street go.

Supervisor Richard Forster said “to me, now is not the time to be selling anything. We would be getting the bottom dollar,” and it has been empty long enough that it would not hurt to keep it empty.

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.