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FORT SCOTT, KS – Bourbon County’s chief district judge told commissioners Monday night that a courthouse elevator that has been out of service since June 16 is now jeopardizing jury trials and could force the dismissal of criminal cases if it is not fixed soon.
Internal county emails reviewed by the Monitor add new detail to, and in one respect correct, the public account of why repairs have dragged on for more than five weeks.
“This is a significant issue for us,” said Judge Amy Harth, chief judge of the 6th Judicial District, which covers Bourbon, Linn and Miami counties.
She said her clerk administrator had traced email records of elevator problems back to 2023, and that the courthouse has been “really down” since mid-June.
One jury trial scheduled for August 17 was resolved through a plea deal, she said, but a second defendant, charged with aggravated kidnapping, had her trial continued because the county could not guarantee jurors could reach the third-floor courtroom.
Harth said the courts must send jury summonses August 10 for a trial Judge Ward has scheduled for August 31, giving the county roughly two weeks to resolve the problem or face another continuance.
She said Kansas’ speedy-trial statute (K.S.A. 22-3402) does not pause for building maintenance problems, meaning delays caused by the elevator would count against the state, not the defendant.
“If these people run out of time, these cases will have to be dismissed,” Harth said.
Beyond criminal trials, Harth said the outage raises broader access-to-justice concerns.
She described telling County Counselor Bob Johnson that it was unfair for an elderly litigant unable to climb stairs to appear only by video while an able-bodied opposing party sat in the room with the judge.
“Access to court is a huge, huge deal for us,” she said, adding that the county is obligated to provide an in-person alternative for anyone unable or unwilling to appear remotely.
Harth also said Judge Ward sent commissioners a letter in June outlining safety concerns beyond public access, including the difficulty Sheriff Bill Martin's office has moving inmates without the elevator and the strain on court staff climbing stairs multiple times a day.
County Attorney James Crux raised similar alarm in a separate July 2 email to the county’s elevator vendor, writing that the outage was disrupting his own office’s operations and warning of “potential civil liability for failing to comply with the ADA.”
Crux also pressed for an update on “how long the elevator will continue to remain out of order,” noting the jail was having to walk in-custody defendants up public stairwells to reach courtrooms on the second and third floors.
Harth said she separately contacted the state fire marshal’s office, which she said oversees elevator safety in Kansas, to request an inspector.
“I’m not getting in it,” Harth said of the elevator’s current condition, describing an incident in which an employee was trapped inside, and the fire department had to respond.
Internal emails obtained by the Monitor show that incident happened July 14, the same day the county had declared the elevator repaired.
Laura Krom, who has coordinated the repair effort for the commission, wrote to courthouse staff at 11:05 a.m. that morning that the elevator was “functional as of 10:30 this morning” after new control boards were installed.
Within hours, the emails show, the elevator failed again, trapping the employee, and Krom notified county officials it would be down “for a couple more days.”
The vendor, Otis Elevator, later determined the cause was a faulty keyswitch rather than the boards and ordered a replacement part, a repair that matches a $3,199 “parts and labor for keyswitch” payment to Otis in the county’s July 27 accounts-payable records.
The emails also revise a detail from earlier public reporting on the repair dispute.
Fort Scott Biz reported that the county’s maintenance contract with Kone was terminated after Otis performed intervening repair work on the elevator (Thorpe, 2026).
Internal correspondence shows the intervening work was done by CBI, a construction and electrical subcontractor working on a separate, longer-term elevator modernization project, not by Otis.
Krom wrote to Otis’s Kyle George on June 26 that CBI had built a new wall and relocated the elevator’s electrical box as part of that modernization project, but left the box unhooked, preventing Kone’s technician from completing board repairs that day.
George wrote back July 7 that Kone considered the county’s maintenance contract “void” once CBI’s crew had worked in the shaft area, and that Otis (though not the maintenance contractor of record) stepped in to keep the elevator running.
The same emails show Kone had gone largely unresponsive by late June, and that Otis and county staff spent much of early July trying to track down the specific replacement parts Kone’s technician had originally intended to install.
Commissioner David Beerbower said he has been pursuing a backup plan, including conversations with the county attorney’s office and outreach to the Fort Scott postmaster about leasing a third-floor courtroom space at the post office as a temporary venue.
“It has been an ongoing problem and the building’s not going to get any younger,” Beerbower said, adding that moving court operations would require Kansas Supreme Court approval and advance notice to jurors on where to report.
Commission Chairman Samuel Tran, who said he previously managed courthouse operations at a federal building with redundant elevators and secure inmate transport, argued the episode underscores the county’s long-term need for a dedicated justice center.
Commissioners’ own formal records confirm the contract dispute’s cost. On July 20, the commission authorized a $3,199 Otis service call after Kone’s maintenance contract lapsed.
Two days later, at a July 22 special meeting, commissioners rescinded that approval and authorized a larger $5,489.10 Otis contract for further repairs, according to the meeting’s official minutes.
Commissioners did not take a formal vote on the elevator during Monday’s meeting, instead directing Beerbower to continue coordinating with the courts and the county’s executive assistant.
Harth asked to be updated by August 9, the day before jury summonses must go out for the August 31 trial, on whether the courthouse will be usable or whether she must seek permission to hold court elsewhere.
