By John Kiesewetter
The Cincinnati Enquirer

FAIRFIELD - The debate about building a police-court center across from the city building has ended.

Council voted 5-2 this week to proceed with a justice center on that site.

"It's settled. Now we need to move forward with the design," said councilman Marty Judd. He had proposed Monday that council reconsider the justice center decision, fulfilling a fall campaign promise.

Council had decided last year to move the police and municipal court from Ohio 4, opposite Fairfield Central Elementary School, to the old Kroger store site near Pleasant Avenue and Nilles Road, in the center of town.

"That's some of the most prized, valuable, development-ready real estate in the city," Judd said.

Vice Mayor Steve Miller said the court and police headquarters belong in the heart of the city near city offices, the new Village Green business center, library and fire headquarters. Council will hear design options for the justice center on Feb. 9.

The new justice center became controversial, Judd and Miller said, because some residents thought the city was building a jailhouse. Jails in nearby counties are called justice centers.

Police here only have four holding cells to keep people for a few hours before transferring them to the Butler County Jail.

"This is not a jail, and it never will be," Miller says.

"People hear 'justice center' and they think of 12-feet walls and barbed wire. But please stress that this is not going to be a jail," Judd says.

With the justice center issue resolved, council must give some attention to businesses north of the site - in Reigert Square along Pleasant Avenue and a nearly empty shopping center on Patterson Boulevard.

"We're going to have to get involved to make those areas as successful as Village Green is," Miller says.

E-mail jkiesewetter@enquirer.com