County purchases property to expand campus

Sanders County has purchased two properties adjacent to the courthouse in Thompson Falls in order to help ease increasing congestion in the county building.

The commissioners purchased two properties along Jefferson Street between Main Street and Maiden Lane. One property was a private residence and the other is a commercial property that currently houses businesses including Clark Fork Title and the local probation and parole office. The residential property was purchased for $450,000 and the commercial building for $1.9 million. Funding came from the Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund, from which the county received $7 million that must be used by the end of 2026. The Local Assistance fund, according to the U.S. Department of Treasury, is a general revenue enhancement program that provides additional assistance to eligible Tribal governments, eligible revenue sharing counties and eligible revenue sharing consolidated governments. "This will in no way impact property taxes," said Sanders County Commissioner Tony Cox.

"We wanted to spend it on infrastructure. Things we could do to improve the county for the future," Cox said. The commissioners stated they are hoping to use the remaining funds as any needed match for funding for the Noxon bridge project.

Cox said the county is short on office space in the courthouse and the county rents multiple office spaces. The property acquisition will help get the county offices on one campus, Commissioner John Holland added. The county extension office and Sanders County Community Development currently reside in the Clark Fork Professional Building east of town. "It's really going to enhance this campus," Holland stated.

Cox noted that the sheriff's office has been reviewing ways to get more space. Much of the sheriff's office building basement is used for office space. "It was never intended for that," Cox said. Commissioner Dan Rowan said they looked at purchasing property and constructing a new building for the sheriff's office, but those costs exceed the price of purchasing an existing building. Rowan added that the commissioners also saw a need for a bigger dispatch center for the sheriff's office. "When we recognized the need, we believed this was the most economic solution," he said.

The commissioners intend for the residential property at the corner of Jefferson and Maiden to be utilized for additional parking. The commissioners noted that they used the Local Assistance funding for the property acquisitions so it would not be at the expense of local taxpayers. "We never would have had those fundings without going into debt or attempting to pass a levy," Cox said.

The commercial building has tenants with current leases, so not all of the space will be utilized by the county until the leases are up.