The Alpena County Board of Commissioners must decide what to do with its courthouse and annex buildings on Chisholm Street.

The current courthouse is not compliant with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act because it lacks an elevator to take people up to the courtrooms on the second floor. It also lacks storage space and adequate workspace and, because of its age, is costly to maintain. County operations are also split between two buildings — the courthouse and annex — on opposite sides of Chisholm.

Consultants from the Southfield firm Plante Moran said in a facilities study the county could spend $17.25 million to renovate the existing buildings or up to $34 million to build a new campus that would house all county operations under one roof.

Commissioners spent $75,000 on the facilities study.

“This has to move forward, because we spent $75,000 on the study,” Commissioner Bill Peterson told News staff writer Steve Schulwitz for a recent story. “We need to decide if we should remodel what we have, build a new building, pick and choose priorities. I’ve been on this board for seven years, and we have talked about fixing the courthouse and making it ADA-compliant. It has never gone anywhere. This is one step to getting us somewhere.

We couldn’t agree more.

The seat of county government should be accessible to everyone and should be a well-organized, efficient, well-maintained place for its employees.

We call on the county to make the tough decision and move forward on doing something soon to the county government facilities.

We know the price tag is scary, but it has to be done.