State officials still haven’t found full-time security coverage for the Grand Isle County Courthouse after the county sheriff’s department ended its services at the building in July.
As a result, officials said they don’t yet know when the courthouse could reopen to the public five days a week.
“We’ve been trying to go to our other partners — other sheriff’s offices, private security — to see if they have resources available to help us,” State Court Administrator Patricia Gabel said. “And up to this point, we haven’t identified that.”
Without full-time security, the county courthouse has been closed for in-person services Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays since the beginning of the month. State court security officers are providing coverage Tuesdays and Thursdays.
During the pandemic, most of the court’s operations have been remote, since the building in North Hero does not have a mechanical ventilation system.
State officials had known since at least June that the Grand Isle County Sheriff’s Department was considering ending security services at the courthouse, said Rob Schell, the judiciary’s manager of security and safety.
In early July, Schell said, County Sheriff Ray Allen told the state he would stop providing security for the building at the end of the month.
“That was the first time we were aware of a specific date that the coverage would no longer be available,” Schell said.
Officials said the sheriff’s decision came down to staffing issues that are not unique to Grand Isle County. Sheriff’s departments across Vermont are struggling to recruit qualified deputies and pay competitive wages, Schell said, which has “a cascading effect” when deputies retire and then can’t be replaced.
Gabel said she has testified before the Legislature multiple times seeking additional funding that would allow the judiciary to both hire more court security officers and pay sheriffs more for the courthouse security their departments already provide.
The additional money state lawmakers have approved over the past several years is not enough, Gabel said, to keep court security profitable for the sheriff’s departments.
Vermont’s 14 sheriffs receive taxpayer money to provide some state-mandated law enforcement services, but rely on contracts with courts, state agencies, municipalities and other entities to make most of their revenue.
“It’s only with the cooperation of sheriffs willing to do that, that we’ve been able to cover as much as we have been,” she said. “But when they start dealing with their own resource issues, it’s not like there’s some rabbit that we can pull out of the hat.”
Private security contractors also tend to want more funding for court security than the judiciary can provide, and may be dealing with staffing issues of their own, Gabel said.
“It’s a statewide issue,” she said, adding that if the judiciary is able to find a new security provider for the Grand Isle County Courthouse, “the ideal” would be to reopen the building five days a week.
Local response
With the current reduced schedule, islanders who want to drop off court paperwork in person — including filings that involve emergency relief from abuse, stalking and sexual assault — need to travel to courthouses in Franklin County three days a week.
Court documents can be filed through the judiciary’s website or by emailing JUD.FranklinGrandIsleUnit@vermont.gov.
And residents can call in emergency relief filings at any time and a court employee will be available to help, said Tari Scott, the state’s chief of trial court operations. The number for after-hours emergency filings is 1-800-540-9990.
But in an email exchange on Friday afternoon between Scott and Grand Isle State’s Attorney Douglas DiSabito, the state’s attorney wrote he attempted to call the Grand Isle County courthouse as if he were submitting an emergency relief filing, but got a message that all the lines were busy. (DiSabito shared the email with VTDigger.)
This appears to be a loophole in the judiciary’s system, he wrote, noting that when people file these types of petitions they tend to be in a state of panic.
DiSabito has been a vocal critic of the state’s decision to close the courthouse three days a week. He said Gabel did not respond to multiple emails he sent her seeking more information about the partial closure.
More than 150 people have signed an online petition DiSabito started calling on state officials to immediately reopen the courthouse full-time. He also is planning a meeting about the situation with leaders from the Lake Champlain Islands’ five towns.
The attorney said he does not think state officials are treating the security shortage in Grand Isle County with the same urgency they would for a similar situation in a more populated area, such as Chittenden County.
“People up here deserve to be treated exactly how everybody else is treated in terms of their ability to access justice,” DiSabito said.
Jeff Parizo, the selectboard chair in the town of Grand Isle, said a partial courthouse closure is not what the community wants, though he understands why the state needs some time to address it.
“I don’t think any of us are in favor of closing our courthouse, even temporarily,” he said. “But I do understand the issue with law enforcement, and having to staff it.”
