BOZEMAN, Mont. – The former Catholic school and current Law & Justice Center is under construction as Gallatin County works on a more secure way for the public to enter the building.
The south entrance has added two doors at the top of the stairs where anyone entering the facility will have to go through. Once they are through the doors, each person will go through a security checkpoint where people will walk through a metal detector as security officers check bags.
Gallatin County Sheriff Brian Gootkin said these improvements are a result of incidents in the past.
“We have had numerous incidents in the last year when we have found weapons in the building,” said Gootkin. “We have had incidents in the building and it can be a volatile situation for people. You have all types of situations. You have divorces, child custody hearings. So again, we just want to reiterate that we want people to be safe in this building.”
Gallatin County Commissioner Steve White said these renovations have been in the works for years. In the beginning, the changes were estimated to cost around $300,000 and would be split by the county and the city. But once city voters decided to approve an all-in-one city Public Safety Center, the cost would be sent to the county to pay on its own.
“Now we have improved the design so it is not as costly,” said White. “And at that time the city was going to help pay for it. Now the city is not involved with that so it is gonna be a county improvement, and it is gonna be around $130,000 to do everything that we want to do.”
Some of the money for the project was approved last budget cycle by county commissioners and White said the rest will be paid in the next cycle.
With the new changes, White said the county realizes people might experience delays when entering the new sole entrance to the building, but safety comes first.
“That is what our goal is,” said White. “To create an environment that is going to probably slow up a little bit of the public’s access to the building but at the same time it is going to increase the security element.”
The entrance is currently under construction and the new changes for the security checkpoint are not set to roll out until the beginning of 2019.
