It's too early to tell how much the emergency repairs to the Escambia County Courthouse in Brewton will cost since bids are not due until Monday.
What we do know is those repairs will be designed to fix the problems of immediate need but some long-time planning will soon begin as to whether the county commission opts for an estimated $10.2 million to completely renovate or $13 million to build a new courthouse. If those two options become reality, which we doubt, the new courthouse would be the best option.
The best option would be to move the county seat from Brewton to Flomaton and put the courthouse in the center of the county. It may snow tomorrow and so many feel such an idea is far fetched.
But in the long-run it would save the county and the taxpayers a lot of money. Moving the county seat and the courthouse to Flomaton would allow the county to shutdown the Atmore Courthouse Satellite Office which in our best estimate that would save close to $1 million a year.
By moving the courthouse to Flomaton you would give more people equal access to the courthouse – 15 miles from Atmore and 15 miles from Brewton.
We've learned that such a decision would take a vote of the people to move the county seat since the courthouse has to be located in the county seat.
We've crunched some numbers and having the county vote to move the county seat to Flomaton is not out of the question. Everybody from Flomaton to the west, to include Atmore would vote for the move. The last time we looked, there are more people in Atmore than there are in Brewton, so the numbers can add up.
We applaud the commission for addressing the current emergency needs, but the real discussions will begin after those are done.
Some may think we're dreaming about moving the county seat to Flomaton, but most of the progress made in this country since its inception began with dreams.
