Lead and Other Toxins Close DA’s Office in Hartwell

The District Attorney is looking for new office space in Hart County, now that their former offices have been closed because of lead paint and other problems.

According to Northern Judicial Circuit District Attorney Parks White, old, chipped paint falling form the ceiling, along with other structural problems make the building unsafe for his employees.

White tells WLHR News, the building was closed last week after the paint chips were confirmed to be lead-based.

White said the old jail house building on North Carolina St.  has had a number of issues over the past years, such as a leaking roof, and black mold on the walls. There is also the problem, White said, of noises and cigarette smoke coming up from prisoners housed in jail cells under the DA’s office.

“It’s an abysmal condition to be working in,” White said. “It looks like something out of Soviet Russia. Can you imagine any government looking like this? Nothing looks this bad anywhere else.”

County Administrator Jon Caime said he was made aware of the lead paint problem in late January and at the time, told White to move his staff out as soon as possible.

“It turns out the ceiling paint is flaking off and he (White) expressed concern with that, that it might have lead,” Caime said. “So we advised him to find alternative office accomodations immediately. Then, we hired a professional to go in and test if there might be lead-based paint in there. It turns out that in a couple of spots there was lead paint. In other buildings, it’s normal for there to be lead-based paint.”

White said his staff is now operating out of the Elbert Co office and is looking for new office space in Hart County.

White said it is important to continue to have offices in the county, but the space they need requires room to store thousands of closed case files, plus ongoing open cases.

“We have about 500 open cases in Hart County,” White said. “You can’t just pick all of them up and move them to new location because we don’t have the room for them. Since we implemented this case management system, there are 3,000 closed cases in Hart County and we are required by law to hold them for 25 years.”

White said his goal is to get those cold cases stored on microfiche or disc, but other items of evidence that go with those cases must still be stored in boxes.

One office space suggested by the county is on Cade St., originally set aside for the Tax Commissioner, but Caime said the Tax Commissioner does not want to move from the county courthouse.

Meatime, Caime said the county has no plans to remove and repair the lead paint problem at the North Carolina St. building nor do any other repairs there for that matter.

“We spent a lot of money on that building. Older buildings are fine but older buildings can cost a lot of money. We’ve put a lot of money in that building already.  Seems like every time we turn around, there’s another problem with that building.  So, at this time, we have no plans to utilize that building for the District Attorney’s office or to put anyone else in there.”

Caime said there are no definite plans for the use of the N. Carolina St. building .  He said however, it will likely be used for storage.