A part-time judge may someday sit in one of the comfy leather chairs in the Oak Harbor City Council chambers, presiding over misdemeanor cases and traffic ticket appeals.

The city council decided Tuesday to hire a consultant, for $5,000, to analyze whether it’s financially worthwhile for the city to set up its own court. The city currently contracts with Island County to run the municipal court out of the district court building on SE Eighth Avenue.

We couldn’t do worse than we are currently doing…” Bleyhl told the council. “The costs are pretty high.”

The main obstacle may be finding office space in a City Hall that some say is already bursting at the seams.

City Attorney Phil Bleyhl said the city has a window of opportunity every four years to break away from the county and set up its own court. The last time the city looked into the issue was eight years ago.

But now, Bleyhl said he recently compared the price the city pays for the service to other communities with similar numbers of citations and misdemeanors running through them. He said Oak Harbor is near the top of the list when it comes to dollar amounts.

“We did a snap-shot look at a dozen courts,” he said an interview. “Even when the percentage goes down in the future, it still looks like we’re paying a lot.”

The city is currently responsible for 29 percent of the total cost of the court. The city is budgeted to pay $367,435 to the county this year, plus about $14,400 for public administration and $75,000 in public defense costs.

Bleyhl said the percentage is supposed to go down to 24 percent in the year 2006.

City Finance Director Doug Merriman said the municipal court brings in about $254,000 a year to the city, largely from fines and fees, and probation recovers about $96,000. “It’s pretty much a break-even operation,” he said.

The main problem Bleyhl sees with starting court out of City Hall is the lack of space. The council chamber, he said, makes an excellent court room, but there’s no place to put offices for a judge, a clerk or a court administrator. The city would need a judge at part time — about 0.2 to 0.5 — for the court. A judge would simply have to be a practicing attorney.

As it stands now, City Hall is already overcrowded. The legal department, for example, has two employees without offices, including the city’s “homeless prosecutor,” Bleyhl said. And there’s no place for a secretary for the city administrator.

In fact, City Administrator Thom Myers is studying the space needs for the city and is going to report to city council on possible options at the Dec. 7 meeting. In the past, city officials have toured the former InterWest buildings on Pioneer Way with an eye to possible office space.

“The city is looking at space needs for the growth of the city,” Bleyhl said. If something is going to be done about office space, he said it’s the perfect time to discuss the options for breaking the court away from the county.

Other benefits for the city to run its own court, Bleyhl said, would be efficiency and time savings. Currently, the county district court and the city’s municipal court aren’t on separate calendars.

Quite often city attorneys — both defense and prosecution — as well as others in court for municipal court matters have to wait at length. That’s a waste of time and money for city employees and for the general public, he said, especially those who are paying lawyers to sit and wait.

On the other hand, Bleyhl pointed out the city would lose Judge Peter Strow.

“Judge Strow is one of the best judges I’ve ever seen,” he said, “as for the quality of care he puts into his cases.”