Remember that bright, airy lobby in the new Winnebago County Justice Center? All that glass helped create a grand public space in a city that has very little of that sort of thing.
Well, remembering that blue sky view is all you can do now, because it's been done in by the county's security scare-o-crats. They struck over the Veterans Day break and blacked out the windows on the atrium's top level.
The result is absolutely hideous. They succeeded in creating a dungeon-like environment on the second floor. According to a worker, the darkness has damaged staff morale. Even the judges are honked off over the building's newfound ugliness, the worker said.
"The prisoners in the jail have more sunlight than we do," said the worker, whose identity I agreed to protect.
What's weird about this cover up is that neither the county board chairman nor the sheriff authorized the work. And neither of them were aware of its effect until I called them Wednesday morning.
"We wanted natural lighting. That was the whole thrust of the design," said Winnebago County Board Chairman Scott Christiansen.
"I took a walk over there, I don't like the way it looks. I think it took away from the attractiveness of the building," said Richard Meyers, the sheriff.
Sally Classens, the county's risk-assessment and purchasing manager, said she's the one who had the black plastic film stuck over the windows. In July, when the building first opened, the deputies who staff the security check-in stations complained of sunlight impeding their ability to see the X-ray monitors during certain times of the day. They wore sunglasses and tilted the angle of the monitors. Meyers said he thought that took care of the problem, because he hadn't heard any complaints since.
"I talked to Charlie Jackson (the sheriff's building security man), and he said they never put in a work order. He said they put sunglasses on, and they changed security monitor at a different angle, and they solved the problem," Meyers said.
But Classens said the problem wasn't solved, and that glare remained a problem in bright sunlight.
"The security people contacted me. I talked directly to the line people," Classens said. "We dealt with Window Enhancements, and we did what they recommended," which was to install an opaque film over the top half of the windows in the lobby.
Classens was adamant that safety outweighs everything else.
"Security issues are more important than how it looks on the outside. We can't afford to take risks. We'll revisit the situation, but we're not sure we can do anything to change it," she said.
Christiansen, though, said he'll get it done.
"There's got to be a middle ground so you can get a lighter film to have some light coming through there. It shouldn't be that big a problem. I was a little hacked off when I heard about it," he said.