Leaky roof a catalyst for moldy record books in Boonville

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Leaky roof a catalyst for moldy record books in Boonville

ville Courier & Press - ville,IN*

By LYDIA X. MCCOY

Courier Press staff writer 464-7431 or mccoyl@...

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2008/sep/30/leaky-roof-a-catalyst-

for-moldy-record-books-in/

BOONVILLE, Ind. — Row after row of old record books fills the former

Carquest building on Boonville's Main Street.

The county has been using the small, brick building for storage, but

a leaky roof has left the items in moldy disarray.

Now county officials have to figure out the answers to a number of

questions: What can be thrown away? What needs to be kept? Where do

you store them — and future records — to keep them safe?

" It's no surprise to anyone that the records are in such bad shape

because of the mold and the rain and everything that has damaged

them over the years, " said Circuit Court Judge Kelley, who is

also the chairman of the county's records retention commission,

during a recent meeting.

" The bottom line is that approximately 75 percent of the stuff

that's over there can be destroyed. The other 25 percent is where

we're going to have some problems, " he said. " I'm just taking baby

steps, one at a time, to get it down to the 25 percent and try to

deal with that. "

The records are none of the county's historical ones but those the

state says must be kept for a certain period of time, such as

duplicates of tax records. But a state official, who visited the

county in August to check the records, said at least two of the

oldest court volumes should be in the archives.

" The records that we're talking about are from ... the auditor's and

treasurer's records that are also on a computer, but they're the big

old books that they used to hand write everything, " said County

Clerk Weisheit, who is also a member of the records

retention commission. " So there are other records of these. The

clerk's records ... are the old (Justice of the Peace) from when

they had a city court. They're not of much value, and they're so

moldy that they're not of value to anyone to try and go in and use

them. "

Other offices and departments that have records stored in the

building include the assessor, recorder, health department and parks

department. Many departments, such as the clerk's office, keep

records they need on a day-to-day basis in the basement of the

Judicial Center.

The 25 percent of the damaged records that need to be kept must be

cleaned and stored in a climate-controlled location. Some of those

storage options include part of the Warrick EMS building or the old

jail.

Warrick County Commissioners President Don said that body

found out about the moldy records several weeks ago.

" We had no idea those records were out there like that ... the

pictures that I saw were not good, " he said. " We have to have a more

secure area for our records. "

The problem was discovered when some children were spotted on the

roof of the building after an ice storm earlier this year. When one

of the county's maintenance workers went on the roof to check things

out, he discovered a hole in the roof.

The hole wasn't repaired, in part because the county was debating

future uses for the building, and with the spring's rains, more and

more records became wet and started molding.

" We knew there was no heat and no cooling in there, " Weisheit

said. " Everybody knew it leaked, but we didn't know it was ever in

such bad shape. "

Before the Judicial Center was built about 10 years ago, old records

were stored off site with a company called Kinder for $6,000 a year.

The records were given a bar code and put in inventory. After the

Judicial Center was built, it was decided the $6,000 could be saved

by storing the records at an off-site building owned by the county.

The fate of the Carquest building is in question, but said

it could end up being leveled and turned into a parking lot.

" Right now we have a good area at the EMS station where the old jail

cells are, which is a nice dry area which you could put some nice

metal shelves and categorize them and keep them dry, "

said. " It would be an air-conditioned area which we could keep

climate controlled, which is ideal. In the old jail there may be

some storage area as well. "

The county already is attempting to remedy the problem. This week,

it will remove the records from the building and have the various

departments go through them to determine what can be destroyed and

what needs to be kept.

Once the county has determined what must be kept, Tom of the

state Supreme Court will help sort out the records.

According to the state, the records will have to be dried completely

before being moved to a new storage space.

" We just don't know what to do with the ones they want us to keep, "

Weisheit said. " We're going to have to have something in the future

because we're running out of room here. We don't want to scare the

public and say we're going to do away with records because we're

not. "