ELKINS — After conducting its meetings in the multi-purpose room of the Wees Annex for several months, the Randolph County Commission has found a new location in which to meet moving forward.

Future meetings will be held in the former IGA building located on Randolph Avenue next to the Wees Annex. The building’s parking lot will be used to house Randolph County Sheriff’s Office vehicles.

Late last year, the RCC was forced to move out its old facility in the James F. Cain Courthouse Annex to make room for a courtroom for Randolph County’s circuit judge. The commission’s offices and meeting room were remodeled for new Division 2 judge Jaymie Godwin Wilfong. 

“When Judge Wilfong moved into her new offices at our old location, the Supreme Court instructed us to find a spot to have jury selections for her,” Commission President David Kesling told The Inter-Mountain. “When she moved into her new offices, she couldn’t use the main courthouse for jury selections, so we leased the old IGA building for that purpose. It was the closest place to her new offices and courtroom we could find.” 

Kesling said the building’s owner, Jeff Kiess, renovated part of the structure for the RCC, and that the parking lot was tied into the lease. 

“We rented that building for a year, and since then things have worked out where Judge Wilfong was able to use a portion of the Courthouse for jury selection,” Kesling said. “We were already tied into a lease for a year, so instead of using the Wees Annex Multi-Purpose room and taking it away for the Health Department and 4-H, we decided to use the building as our new location for county commission meetings.”

Kesling said the lease agreement for the front portion of the building and the parking lot is $6,625 a month.

“Jeff (Kiess) put a new roof on the building, carpeted the inside, and put new ceiling tiles and lights in there,” Kesling said. “We took some of the old items that we had in storage and moved them over to what is now our new meeting room. The only thing we had to do was set up a new camera system.”

The Commission recently declined to renew a lease agreement with the Masonic Lodge, which is located between the James F. Cain Courthouse Annex and the Wees Annex. 

“The sheriff has already moved all of the cruisers to the IGA parking lot since we are renting it,” Kesling said. “We did away with the lease with the Masonic Lodge and we were paying $500 a month for that, so that saves us $6,000 for the year. Moving the county vehicles to the IGA lot also freed up parking at the Wees Annex.”

Kesling said that the county commission is still exploring options when it comes to finding a permanent location for RCC offices and meetings. 

“We are going to look at that more as it gets closer to this lease ending,” Kesling said. “Originally we had plans to move our offices and meeting room to the old Randolph County Jail, but the money we had saved for that had to be spent on the project for the new judge. So that put a hamper on the renovation plans for the old jail.

“It was mandated by the Supreme Court, though, that we have a courtroom, office space, jury room, and everything else for the new judge, but no funding was provided. The old jail project is something we are still very interested in and we are looking at other options as well.”

The next regular meeting for the Randolph County Commission will be July 17 at 1:30 p.m. in the former IGA building.