{"id":35180,"date":"2026-03-04T16:37:50","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T21:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=35180"},"modified":"2026-03-04T16:37:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T21:37:51","slug":"mayor-says-city-talking-with-county-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/04\/mayor-says-city-talking-with-county-officials\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor says city talking with county officials"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s Adams County government&#8217;s problem, but Decatur&#8217;s government is willing to join an effort to find a favorable solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Decatur Mayor Dan Rickord remarked at Tuesday night&#8217;s city council meeting that the city is in talks with county officials concerning the Adams County Service Complex and its gymnasium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;re working with the county, it&#8217;s in an infancy stage,\u201d the mayor said, indicating that some financial institutions have been involved in some of the talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"478\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Service-Complex.jpg?resize=640%2C478&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-35181\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Service-Complex.jpg?w=720&amp;ssl=1 720w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Service-Complex.jpg?resize=300%2C224&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cA lot of questions are being asked (by the public) and there are a lot of comments out there,\u201d City Attorney Anne Razo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe want people to know that their concerns are being heard,\u201d Rickord added. \u201cSome things are in the works; we will update as we get more details.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adams County Commissioner Stan Stoppenhagen confirmed to WZBD.com Wednesday that talks with the city are ongoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOh yeh, for sure,\u201d he said. \u201cWe&#8217;re looking at all our options. Our architect was in yesterday (Monday) and gave us some options. We&#8217;re getting together again next week to talk some more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stoppenhagen said he had recently talked with Rickord \u201cabout putting together some sort of coalition. It&#8217;s best that we work together, that we have a small group working together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>UNDER ONE ROOF: County officials have been looking for some time at the possibility of bringing several departments under one roof, the county-owned Service Complex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of particular note is the desire to bring much-needed security improvements to the superior court which is now located in the one-time library building north of the present library, on Third St.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As news has circulated about the talk of restructuring part of the Service Complex \u2013 which would likely mean the loss of its gymnasium \u2013 it&#8217;s become a hot topic of conversation throughout Adams County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A county-hired architectural firm is working on plans that would affect the gymnasium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stoppenhagen told WZBD.com last month that the county commissioners would like to move superior court, Community Corrections (now situated a short distance north of Decatur) the probation department and the prosecutor&#8217;s office (both in the courthouse at this time) into the Service Complex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt would be more efficient and we would have better security; the old library building is not a place for the court.,\u201d Stoppenhagen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That would require a major project. \u201cAnd, unfortunately, we would have to take over the gym.,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com It&#8217;s Adams County government&#8217;s problem, but Decatur&#8217;s government is willing to join an effort<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,21],"class_list":["post-35180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Service-Complex.jpg?fit=720%2C538&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35182,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35180\/revisions\/35182"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}