MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The Memphis and Shelby County Juvenile Court building is still closed indefinitely as it was deemed unsafe because of mold, asbestos and lead paint that were found in the building. But the Juvenile Court Clerk's office will offer limited services on Tuesday.
A release from the court said that customer service availability this week will take place:
- May 8th: 12pm to 4pm
- May 9th: 9am to 12pm
- May 10th: 9am to 3pm
Petitions that can be filed include custody, visitation, dependency and neglect. Only credit card payments will be accepted.
Zoom hearings will also resume May 8th.
It’s not clear what sparked the original investigation into the building but ABC24 discovered that, for at least the last several months, there have been more than a dozen air purifiers scattered throughout the building.
Juvenile Court Judge Tarik B. Sugarmon says testing was done "four or five weeks ago."
As a response to the closure, Sugarmon says they are trying to set up different locations, "depending on the type of dockets that are necessary to be operational."
Potential sites where the more than 130 employees will setup include the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center, the Election Commission building and other open spaces near Jail East.
"I’ve asked the county (to) not rule out any opportunity for us," Sugarmon said.
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris said that now that the problem has been identified and staff has vacated, more testing will be done so that city and county leaders can figure out how to permanently fix this potentially hazardous situation.
"We’ve brought in one of the environmental organizations that we work with often for these kind of issues so they will have to go through the building and give us a report," said Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris.
As far as delays in dockets and hearings Sugarmon said it should not be a problem.
"Hopefully it won’t create much of a back up because we’ve only lost a few days now we should be fully operational on all of our dockets by the end of next week, hopefully sooner," said Sugarmon.