TOWN OF ULSTER – Ulster County officials were joined by local judges and state-level court administrators, among others, to dedicate the new Ulster County Family Court complex, located at the former Business Resource Center on Ulster Avenue in the Town of Ulster.
County Executive Michael Hein said that the $10 million retrofit project saves taxpayers at least $20 million, compared to the cost of a separate free-standing building. Work was finished six weeks early, and $500,000 under budget, Hein noted.
Previously, the space at 2 Development Court – next door to the county Department of Social Services – was used as a satellite campus for SUNY Ulster. Years ago, it was once a department store. It replaces the current Family Court building on Lucas Avenue in the City of Kingston.
“There is no question a new facility was necessary,” Hein said. Court administrators for the 3rd Judicial District have been declaring the Lucas Avenue site as substandard for years. “One of the things I heard loud and clear was that the past facility was woefully inadequate,” Hein explained.
If you didn’t feel like a second class citizen when you walked into that building, you sure as hell did when you walked out,” recalled District Administrative Judge Hon. Thomas Breslin, who visited the old location five years ago. “This has to change,” Breslin told his colleagues. “From the state’s vantage point, this building is a model for what’s going to go on across the state,” Breslin observed, highlighting other reform initiatives such as the new Restorative Justice Center. “I think this could be a model across the country.”
“I think that they were being kind,” Hein said. “The truth was, it did not provide the level of dignity and respect for the people we were there to serve – the children and families of Ulster County. It also didn’t provide the capacity for our judges and their staff to do their job and do it well.”
“We thought it was an upgrade, when we got to move to a motorcycle repair shop,” said retired Justice Karen Peters, who launched her judicial career in 1983 as an Ulster County Family Court judge. She called the migration of the Family Court from the county office building, to the county jail, then to Lucas Avenue, and finally the new site, “peripatetic.” “And here we are, finally, after an extraordinary public campaign, an effort of incredible cooperation,” Peters said. “there might have been disagreements, but it wasn’t about politics.”
Hein addressed a full audience in the main courtroom
