Hamilton County is looking to upgrade security at the courthouse.

JASPER — The Hamilton County Board of County Commissioners discussed security renovations for the courthouse at its May 1 meeting.

The courthouse security renovations were put together by Sheriff Harrell Reid, resource officers and the County Clerk Greg Godwin.

The plan includes making one entrance and exit in the building for the public, with possibly different entrance for the employees.

The public entrance and exit would be by the courtroom. It would include moving the glass doors out to match the overhang to provide more room in the corridor outside the courtroom.

The glass will be replaced with bulletproof glass and be a one-way entrance and exit with an X-ray machine and walkthrough.

The commissioners asked about an entrance for the personnel that work in the building having a different access point and was told they could, but what would stop a person from entering that way behind the employee.

EOC Director Henry Land told the board about the 911 addressing changes happening to keep up with current layout of Hamilton County. Land and Pam Allen stated that houses have to have numbers that are three inches tall so emergency response can easily find their homes.

Land said that they also want to change the naming system for emergency response to clear up communication of what location they are going to.

The primary and secondary roads and dirt roads that will keep the names like Highway 41, but roads connecting to it will be assigned a name to associate with that location.

The board approved for Land and Allen to go ahead and work on the ordinance change and connect with people who will be working on this project.

Land said it would be a slow process because just in the NW corner of the county there are more than 1,100 homes.