By Meghan McCormick
The Cleveland County Sheriff's Department has a new home.
This week, most of the Sheriff Joe Lester's staff except for the records department and dispatchers moved to the second floor of a county-owned office building at 122 S. Peters Ave.
The Cleveland County Election Board already is housed in the building's first floor and the district attorney used the office while the county office building on Jones Avenue was enlarged. The building originally was built as the First National Bank and Trust Co. of Norman.
Undersheriff Rhett Burnett said the sheriff's department moved to a new location because space was cramped at its prior location at the Cleveland County Courthouse. The department was having to use at least two or three buildings to store records. Staff members also needed more office space.
"The county commissioners knew we were overcrowded," Burnett said. "We really needed more space."
Burnett said he, Lester, investigators, civil secretaries, civil deputies and the support staff will work from the county building on Peters Avenue.
The staff officially moved into the building Wednesday, he said. People who have business at the county jail or need a police report from the sheriff's records department will need to visit the Cleveland County Courthouse.
Burnett said renovations began on the new sheriff's office in January.
"As a county building, they (commissioners) wanted to make it nice and fix it up," he said. "There were very few spaces to go."
The sheriff's department used its own funds to cover renovations. Burnett said he did not have a total of renovation costs available. Furniture inside the new office was given to the department.
"It didn't cost the taxpayers anything," Burnett said.
The Oklahoma Corrections Industries took care of moving office equipment into the new location, he said.
"We utilized them to come move us instead of using an outside source," he said.
Burnett said investigators with the Operations Division who operate from a location in Slaughterville will stay at that site.
He said he believes the department's new home is "more customer friendly."
"People will have much more access," he said.
Burnett said the new office makes sense because employees need more space. The county also is expanding in population size.
"As we grow, we have bigger needs and more storage needs," he said.
Sheriff Joe Lester said he likes the additional space at his new office.
"We were ecstatic when the commissioners advised us that we could move over here," Lester said.
He said space was too confined at the courthouse location.
"We were so overcrowded before," Lester said. "They addressed all the needs for this facility."
Meghan McCormick
366-3539
mmccormick@normantranscript.com
