Even though the Wood County courthouse is shut down, business goes on.

County employees are working from home when possible and others are sharing split shifts.

County Clerk Kelly Price said, “I split my girls up so we have three on team one and three on team two and I’m a floater. We are set up to work from home now. We can log in from our laptops at home to our case management and our real property records.” 

Price’s office is available by phone, email, fax or mail for regular business days 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. unless a scheduled county holiday. The clerk’s office is not issuing marriage licenses.

“A couple can get married and then after the courthouse opens back up they can come in and they can get a marriage certificate stating ‘as of today (they name the date) I consider myself married.’ It is a marriage certificate, not a license,” Price explained. “I don’t feel like I’m hindering anybody. Most venues are not letting anybody have any big weddings. We got hit all of a sudden because Dallas County shut down and we had tons of people calling wanting marriage licenses and I said I’m not doing that. If I do it for one I’d have to do it for all. If I started doing that we would have a lot of people coming here and that would not be good.”

Price said it has been quite an experience. “As a clerk we are supposed to have a disaster plan. Well this is not exactly one I had planned for. I figured it would be a tornado that tore the top off the courthouse and have to pick up and move to another area, but I never planned for a virus pandemic over the entire United States and world,” Price said. “It’s been kind of an experience just to see what we can do working from somewhere else besides in this office. We are getting it all linked up.”

District Clerk Donna Huston said, “I come to work five days a week and I am working my staff in shifts. I have a staff of four so two are working at home and two are working in the office. We are answering the phones Monday through Friday, but I do close up the office at 3 p.m. The courthouse is closed so if there is an emergency and someone needs to get paperwork to us they can e-file it, email it or mail it. I have had someone who needed to drop something off so they pull up outside the courthouse I myself go down and get it. We are still service based and I am here to serve the public.”

Huston said business has slowed since no court is being held. All district court non-essential hearings and jury trials have been canceled until at least May 1, and that date is subject to change. The district clerk’s office will accept credit card payments on the Wood County website (mywoodcounty.com) and by phone. 

“We apologize for any inconvenience this situation may have caused, but it is very important to the Wood County district clerk’s office to help keep everyone safe and healthy,” Huston added. 

The Wood County elections office has been open daily. Elections officer Laura Wise has been working Tuesday through Friday and employee Rachel Pearson has been in the office on Mondays and working from home the rest of the week.

“I am set up to work from home, but right now I am still going to the office. I’m there from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. I work at the office and then come home and work the rest of the day,” Wise said. “While at the office, the doors are locked, but my phone number is posted on the door and I have a drop box on the front porch. I do keep my email open 24/7.”

The Wood County website at mywoodcounty.com is filled with updates and information including emails and phone numbers for contacts as needed.