Driver’s license testing returns to W’burg

You can now once again take the written part of your driver’s license test, renew your driver’s license, and pay your speeding tickets at the Whitley County Judicial Center (the new courthouse) in Williamsburg.

The judicial center was closed June 28 – July 5 due to a major weekend water leak that was discovered late on Sunday, June 27, coming from a third-floor toilet.

The leak caused the written portion of the driver’s license testing to be moved to the circuit clerk’s office in Corbin last week. In addition, the circuit clerk’s office in Williamsburg was closed to the public for most of last week.

“All of our testing has gone back to Williamsburg starting this week,” Barton said noting that written testing will take place between noon – 1:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday in Williamsburg.

Road tests will still be done by appointments people make registering online.

Also, most of the circuit clerk’s office reopened to the public this past Friday, although a portion of the area is roped off due to construction, Barton said.

This means people can now go in to pay their fines and renew their driver’s licenses.

At a minimum, the leak did tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to mostly portions of the front part of the building, which faces Second Street.

The leak damaged a small third floor courtroom, dripped through the upstairs floor and through the ceiling tiles into the second floor district courtroom of Judge Cathy Prewitt and into the Whitley County Grand Jury meeting room and its waiting area. From there, water leaked onto several furnishings and through the floors on the second floor and into the first floor offices of the Whitley Circuit Clerk’s Office. The bookkeepers office and two other office spaces in that area were damaged.

Prewitt’s courtroom has now been gutted, and repair work on it is expected to take several months to complete. Given its size, the small third floor courtroom shouldn’t take as long to repair.

So far there is no dollar figure estimate on the damage.

The large circuit courtroom on the third floor of the judicial center and the second floor district courtroom of Judge Fred White weren’t damaged by the leak leaving court officials with two of four operating courtrooms.

Barton said that court officials are working to try to schedule hearings for the two circuit court judges, two district court judges, the domestic relations commissioner and a special judge in those two remaining courtrooms.

“It is going to get complicated for a while,” Barton conceded.