Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay, it is still 02/05/2026. This is Senate institutions and we're looking at the capital budget and we're still in section 14, which is the judiciary and now we're going to look at two of the other projects in judiciary and we have Joe Major here from BGS and you can confirm that that is you and let us know what you want us to know.

[Joe Major, Director of Design and Construction, Vermont Buildings and General Services (BGS)]: Okay, for the record I am Joe Major, Director of Design and Construction for the Buildings and General Services. I bring up the slide deck. Pressures are that large today. From section 14 judiciary these funds that I'll be talking about are appropriated to BGS to go work. So at the White River Johnson Courthouse we've been down there for quite a number of years working on design and construction to renovate the interior of the building along with upgrades of electrical and mechanical systems, putting an addition onto the front and to the side of the building. All that work is complete. The court was open February 2 and they then, I haven't heard anything good or bad. So it's operating during construction, removing and everything else. There is some stuff that could happen in Belmont, but the contractor is close by and everything else to get those items completed. What this request is for though, is the riverbank outback towards the river. In the upper photo, what you can see is the crack into the pavement, and if you look at the guardrail, it's that nice little bow. So a bow of the guardrail going around the curve, is that it's tilted back, and that means that our slope is headed downhill, down to the river. And you see the height and difference on the lower photo of where the river is compared to that top of that bank. The guardrail that we're looking at would be, it's behind the shed of the trees that you see in the lower photo, so it's more around the northeast side of the courthouse. The one hundred year flood elevation though is up around that dumpster in transformer level, so the water will come up that high. And so with that the destabilized bank could go at any moment and just slough down. So what we are looking to do is we had a geotechnical engineer come in evaluate our slope and provide us with options. There were three options. Option one was to clean the trees off of the slope, dig out some of the bank and put large stones back in place along that slope known as for Brent. The other was to go halfway down the bank construct a concrete retaining wall and tie that back into the bank or put mesh over the entire bank and tie that with that accelerators into the bank. The sewer line that runs back through there and those tie backs would be a potential issue of hitting the sewer line. So that is the main reason why we took those out of play in the auction. Using the retaining wall one was a more expensive option. The stone rip rag I think though was a lot easier to maintain. You can evaluate it with the growth growing up and cleaning the bank, additional stones and reworking those stones over the years. That's we believe is a far better way to go. So we're looking for $1,600,000 that's in the cash fund to complete this work.

[Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: Okay, do you want

[Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: to stop there and ask for questions?

[Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: I'm good and I understand it.

[Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Makes sense to me.

[Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: Great, great.

[Joe Major, Director of Design and Construction, Vermont Buildings and General Services (BGS)]: Next one is a Newport Courthouse replacement. This too has been, as you can see in the appropriations list that I provided, went on for a number of years. This year we believe though it's the year. The city and the commissioner they have up there is looking to do something potentially with the pit around. They're looking to do it at district and all along the things that they're looking at to enhance their city and we're potentially somewhat in that mix. So in the past we have gone out and searched for land. The land that we that was provided to us by proposals was not the right size piece of property or too far I think the downtown area. Subducery again is looking for being on a bus line if possible or good parking and easy walking distance. And so we're seeing where the city of Newport is going. We believe that there's something in play with here in the next couple of months, some of it's even been on the news and so what this money will be doing is to what we planned in the past is to purchase land start and complete the design Part of that design will be whether or not, and again depends on the whole shuffle and the properties that we may end up with is just judiciary, the courthouse itself going on the plot. In this courthouse here years ago probation and parole and state's attorneys were in there they have since moved out. If we do a combined building with judiciary probation and parole and state's attorney it's going to have separate entrances so that not everybody's walking through and although it's lovely that judiciary and other buildings that are combined does the security for everybody it's really about the courts that's doing the security the people who are visiting them and not everybody for the whole building. So it would be separate entrances and separate being far enough not just to appear a door side by side but you still don't want to have that intermaxing people who are going to court, either probation and parole, who are the same individuals. So they feel like opposite ends of the buildings. And that's what these funds are, the additional funds were at $1,710,000.00720819, it has been rounding at bond money I guess, but then 750,000 in cash. I'll give you that next year with

[Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: Just a quick- the

[Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: I'm sorry. The

[Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: design that you have?

[Joe Major, Director of Design and Construction, Vermont Buildings and General Services (BGS)]: Year is an, up here we have an existing site plan and the area that's got shading around it in the upper left corner is the existing courthouse. The shaded portion of it on the right hand side and the bottom that's parking area but not a lot of parking there also It's also on the left hand side of the bottom you see a look what is in red and that is the accessible entrance. That accessible entrance though it's not the same entrance that everybody else comes through in front of the door that you go through the screening process. So when that happens and they need somebody who has to come into that door the whole screening process has to stop and be reworked for that individual or multiple people coming in throughout the day. The other property to the right of our building is owned by FairPoint. The larger property, the part of that plot is in front of it is the county courthouse and in the back it used to be the old jail that building now has been demolished. One of the things that the city was looking at when they were looking at this whole movement is whether or not the courthouse could be built back there on the county courthouse property and it would fit. There's always that option. There have been no discussions with the county or anything like that. When you are looking at potential places of where to place the building that's the size of the property that you need and then just start plopping things down and see how they fit.

[Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: So do you have a site?

[Joe Major, Director of Design and Construction, Vermont Buildings and General Services (BGS)]: We do not have a site yet. We because of what's going on in the background and not for you to speak about it so but yes we are we are encouraged something will happen year.

[Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: All right Okay, and I don't know if Senator Ingalls wants to. I'm gonna stay quiet. It's encouraging as far as some of the talk that's going on. For me to say anything would be sticking my nose in a process that seems to be moving along fairly nicely.

[Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Okay, well that's good to know. And the amount that you want is in

[Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: the budget, is proposed? That is correct. Okay, Any questions or comments?

[Joe Major, Director of Design and Construction, Vermont Buildings and General Services (BGS)]: No, would just be quiet.

[Wendy Harrison (Chair)]: Plenty of silence. All right. Well, this is good. So thank you. Thank you.

[Robert Plunkett (Vice Chair)]: Do we have any other comments? Okay.