BERRIEN COUNTY COMMISSION UPDATE

By DEBRA HAIGHT
BCR Correspondent
BUCHANAN – Berrien County’s governmental presence will soon be getting bigger as two county departments get ready to move into the former American Electric Power office building at 500 Circle Drive in Buchanan.
Berrien County Commissioner Jim Curran reported last week that Berrien County Administrator Brian Dissette told the county board’s Administration Committee that the county should be able to occupy the building by Oct. 1. Curran represents the Niles Township and Bertrand Township areas and is chairman of the administration committee.
The Berrien County Board of Commissioners approved the purchase of the AEP office building on Circle Drive on Buchanan’s north side just over a year ago. The county agreed to pay AEP $200,000 for the building.
“In our administration committee, we asked Brian about the building,” Curran reported. “We asked when we would be able to occupy it and he said realistically we should be able to occupy it by Oct. 1. We’re just cleaning up a little more on the property title.”
When the building purchase was announced last year, county officials said the plan was to relocate the Berrien County 911 Center and Berrien County Emergency Operations Center to the Buchanan site. Both those centers are currently located at the county’s 2100 Empire Facility in Benton Harbor.
County officials have also noted that the AEP building provides space for other uses such as a south county conference meeting room and an early voting site for south county residents. There has been discussion as well over the months to possibly lease office space to the city of Buchanan.
Dissette said last week that the talks with Buchanan city officials about them leasing office space in the former AEP building ended when Heather Grace left the city manager position. He said talks could resume again at some point in the future.
The Circle Drive site in Buchanan was also initially expected to be home to a new south county communications tower being mostly paid for by a state grant but that plan has hit a snag over the last several months. Native American artifacts were found on the site which forced the county to investigate a new location for the tower.
The county is currently investigating whether to use land behind the Buchanan Township Fire Department on North Main in Buchanan as well as possibly land owned by Lake Michigan College at Bertrand Crossing. The North Main Street site is fairly close to the AEP building.
Commissioners also approved a resolution authorizing Wightman & Associates to design septic and well plans for the Dean’s Hill Road site and develop bid language at a cost of $12,000.
The county is looking at building a new juvenile center complex in Benton Township in the future but need to maintain the Berrien Township site for the next several years. The price tag for a new juvenile center complex has been put at as much as $92 million.
The resolution stated, “Whereas, anticipating that it could be a very long time before we get to the point of having a new Juvenile Center, some things need to be addressed at the current site.”
“The price of a new facility is quite high,” Dissette said. “As we research our options for a new facility, we will need the existing site to continue operating. As a result, we will be making investments to ensure service will occur. This work focuses on getting on our own drinking water and sanitary sewer.”
He said the Berrien Springs village’s sewer system, which the juvenile center and nearby Sacred Heart rehabilitation facility are currently connected to, isn’t the problem. “Our issue is that we own the very long service line which is in bad condition,” he said. “Our option is to repair that line plus the lift station or replace it with a septic system.”