{"id":40943,"date":"2026-10-07T12:19:47","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T16:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=40943"},"modified":"2026-10-07T12:19:48","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T16:19:48","slug":"decatur-to-aid-countys-search-for-parking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/07\/decatur-to-aid-countys-search-for-parking\/","title":{"rendered":"Decatur to aid county’s search for parking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They’ve been working together for some time, but now it’s official: the City of Decatur has an agreement with Adams County government to help find new parking places due to the construction of a county judicial center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Decatur City Council on Tuesday night approved a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) detailing the city’s assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The county commissioners approved the MOU earlier in the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agreement sets forth that the the city \u201cwill assist by making make available or by working to secure\u201d a minimum of 35 and up to 40 parking spaces for use of the court and related court operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The $21 million judicial center will be constructed in the parking lot north of the superior court (old library) building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That will, of course, wipe out a parking lot which is heavily used by people going to nearby superior court and the courthouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While the city agrees to assist in finding new parking places, the MOU states that nothing in the agreement \u201cis intended to obligate the city to purchase real property within the vicinity of the Adams County Courthouse for the purpose of creating new parking for the Adams County Courthouse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It says that the spaces shall \u201cbe mutually identified by the parties, provided that such parking spaces shall be within walking distance of the Adams County Courthouse and Judicial Center.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spaces will be reserved and available for court use Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MOU states that the city and county \u201cacknowledge that additional details regarding the parking spaces may remain to be determined. The parties agree to work in good faith to negotiate and memorialize any remaining parking specifics in a later written agreement or amendment before completion of the project.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

POSITIVE EFFECT; \u201cThis will have a very big effect on the project and we are definitely glad to do it,\u201d Decatur Mayor Dan Rickord said at the council meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

County Commissioner Stan Stoppenhagen, who attended the meeting, said, \u201cI think this will be a big positive effect on downtown and I sincerely appreciate your assistance; thanks for all your help.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are very excited to see the project move forward,\u201d City Attorney Anne Razo noted. \u201cIf we can help in any way, this MOU should do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City officials had been strongly opposed to having the judicial center built anywhere but downtown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when the county announced in July that the judicial center would indeed be constructed downtown, Decatur officials were strongly supportive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it’s great for our downtown, great for foot traffic,\u201d Mayor Rickord said .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City Councilman Matt Dyer said at the time that all 92 other counties in Indiana have their judicial services in downtown areas<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com They’ve been working together for some time, but now it’s official: the City of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40944,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,21],"class_list":["post-40943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Parking-lot.jpg?fit=878%2C214&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40943","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=40943"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40945,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40943\/revisions\/40945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}