by Richard Prior
Staff Writer
Ladling on the humor to make a serious point, Chief Judge Donald Moran Jr. of the 4th Judicial Circuit Thursday urged his lunchtime audience of lawyers and judges to support the new Duval County Courthouse.
It is true, Moran said, that the judges would have preferred 18-foot ceilings in the new building, but they were lowered to 16 feet by Mayor John Peyton, “who felt vertically challenged.”
He said he had also heard the mayor insist that “the length and width of the courtrooms would not match the girth of the judges. I don’t know who he was talking about.”
Moran delivered his low-key but determined speech at the Omni to a capacity crowd of more than 200 members and guests of the Jacksonville Bar Association.
Now in his 11th year as chief judge, Moran was introduced by his brother, County Court Judge John Moran, who said his “big, big brother” was inspired to a career in the judiciary by their father, who encouraged him to find inside work with no heavy lifting.
“To some degree,” complaints about the high costs of the new courthouse are accurate, Donald Moran said. But a big chunk of the money came from having to buy land, instead of trying to refurbish the existing building on Bay Street.
The new site will concentrate development around the government center and open up the “valuable piece of land down there on the water” for private development.
The Board of Governors of the JBA on Wednesday unanimously approved a resolution in support of the new courthouse. President Jim Moseley Jr. hand-delivered a copy to Peyton’s office and to members of City Council.
Conceding that the new building is expensive, Moran said costs compare favorably to those incurred by other locales. He compared the $152-per-square-foot local price with those in Manatee County ($221), Seminole ($216), Orange ($185), Volusia ($172) and Nassau ($164).
“It’s a lot of dollars, and you ought to have a lot of value for those dollars” in a building that is supposed to last 50 to 60 years, he said.
He also said it was unwise, and unfair, to compare the present $232 million cost of the county courthouse with the $84 million spent on the U.S. Courthouse.
About 30 to 40 people visit the U.S. Courthouse daily; between 4,000 and 5,000 are in the county courthouse. There are 24 clerks in the federal courthouse; 350 in the county clerk’s office. And an average of 7.6 prisoners come through the federal courthouse each day, while there are more than 150 in the county courts.
“It is a big project,” said Moran, “but we’re a big operation.”
The courthouse itself “isn’t just a building,” he added. “It embodies our tradition, our customs, our democracy.”
Many complaints, Moran said, have been heard about the City’s purchase of seven blocks of property around the courthouse. The judges understand and have been trying to give the economy a boost by determining “a commercial function for a block of that land” consistent with the courthouse motif.
The solution, he said, is “a domed Gate gas station” nearby, with pumps styled after columns, attendants in robes and hot dogs in the shape of gavels.
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Following the luncheon, a seminar was held to instruct attorneys on how to help foster children around the state. The seminar, a joint effort of The Florida Bar and the JBA, was led by attorney Howard M. Talenfeld of Miami and Gerard F. Glynn, executive director of Florida’s Children First! in Orlando.
“There is a crisis in the foster care system,” said Glynn. “Too many children, too many bad caretakers and too few good caretakers.”
The program, which is only a year old, will be presented in communities around the state, Moseley said.
“We’re honored to have been chosen for their first seminar,” he said.