BONNEVILLE COUNTY, Idaho (KIFI) – Dozens visited the Bonneville County Courthouse this afternoon for a ribbon-cutting to celebrate the completion of its newest courtroom.
Courthouse employees and community members were the first to fill the benches of the new Bonneville County Courtroom 11.
This courtroom will provide space for the new District and Magistrate Judge positions recently created by the Idaho legislature to be chambered in Bonneville County.
This courtroom was designed to accommodate bigger and complex trials by providing space for more attorneys and jurors.
Following the ribbon-cutting ceremony, the public was invited to tour the new courtroom for an open house tour. Attendees learned that the courtroom is 100% ADA accessible (Americans with Disabilities Act).
“The county has grown. It’s just that we are the fourth largest county in the state of Idaho, and it’s just grown. And we have more judges than we have court facilities. It’s just hard to schedule trials as well as the ADA compliance. This courtroom makes it more accessible as the needs of the community grow,” said Penny Manning, Bonneville County Clerk.
Manning tells Local News 8 that this project was conceived around the time the Idaho Falls Police Department was moving out of the building. This left a lot of space to decide what to do with the facility.
While plans to bring in a new courtroom took several years in the making, the renovation timeline exceeded expectations.
The actual project itself started in September, and thanks to construction engineers, they completed the remodel in less than a year.
“We were just trying to get it up and running, knowing that we had been approved for a new district judge and a new magistrate judge, and not having chambers that we could house them in. So we were trying to figure out a path forward, and this seemed like the best choice,” said Manning.
Manning says there are still a few things that need to be done before the new courtroom can be put into action. They anticipate it’ll have its first trial in a few months.
