Public participation limited by Tipton meeting room

April 8, 2014 Public participation limited by Tipton meeting room Commissioners authorize contract to remodel first floor conference room

By Martin Slagter Kokomo Tribune Kokomo Tribune The Kokomo Tribune Tue Apr 08, 2014, 02:50 AM EDT

To meet increasing demand for more seating at its meetings, the Tipton County Board of Commissioners is looking into moving operations down a floor inside the county courthouse building.

Commissioners agreed to hire architecture firm DLZ to negotiate a contract for remodeling the first floor conference room, which would become a central meeting room for many of the city and county boards and commissions.

Once a contract is approved, Tipton County Commissioner Joe VanBibber said DLZ will design the best use of the space, which currently is used to conduct meetings for the city and county plan commissions and the countys board of zoning appeals.

Over the years, it has been what I consider the stepchild office in the courthouse, he said. It was originally a license branch and now it seems like it is a place where if theres furniture they dont know where to put, they take it to the conference room.

VanBibber said sound quality problems and a lack of space in the commissioners current room on the east end of the second floor have prompted the commissioners to look into other options.

County Engineer Phil Beer said the second floor meeting room lacks proper sound quality for meetings and uses a portable sound system. It can hold between 25 and 30 people during meetings, and Beer expects if operations were moved to the first floor room, capacity could at least be doubled.

It would be a flexible space and would be more of a permanent meeting room with 10 to 12 spots for [officials] at the front of the room instead of just a few, he said. There are a couple of issues, with one being there is a post that sits in the middle of the room. We might remove that, but that will all be part of the design process. We dont have a permanent sound system, so were looking at something a little more permanent.

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Public participation limited by Tipton meeting room