The City Council Courthouse Oversight Special Committee received some long-awaited answers Monday, but questions still remain six weeks before the building is substantially completed.
Chris Hand, Mayor Alvin Brown’s chief of staff, told the committee that the administration has reached an agreement with the Jacksonville Transportation Authority to continue to provide parking for jurors called for service at the new Duval County Unified Courthouse Facility.
Jurors currently park at the St. Andrews Station parking lot near Veterans Memorial Arena and are transported on shuttle buses to the existing courthouse on East Bay Street.
Hand said JTA has pledged to maintain the service through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. He said that will provide the administration time to “explore other solutions.”
On the issue of the pedestrian bridge between the old federal courthouse and the new County Courthouse, Hand said the administration is “making a good faith effort” to explore options to build the bridge, including a design change that would place the secure walkway on the ground level across Pearl Street between the two buildings.
State Attorney Angela Corey lobbied for construction of the bridge to afford prosecutors safe passage from their upcoming offices in the old federal courthouse to the courts in the new building.
“Clearly, there needs to be some means of conveyance between the State Attorney’s Office and the new courthouse,” Hand said.
Council and committee member Denise Lee said she questions the administration’s motives in considering options for the bridge when there is no money currently in the courthouse budget to pay for the connecting bridge.
Courthouse Project Manager Dave Schneider said the budget for the project Monday stood at $346,049,325, including $207.7 million for construction costs.
Schneider confirmed that there is no money allocated in that budget for construction of the bridge between the two buildings.
Furniture for the new courthouse has been another contentious issue. The mayor’s office reduced the facility’s furnishings budget with a suggestion to move furniture in the current courthouse to the new facility as a means to reduce the cost of the project.
Ronnie Belton, City chief financial officer, said Monday the mayor’s office has been in contact with the federal General Services Administration and has determined that there may be some furniture available for little or no cost to the City.
Belton said two federal courthouses in Miami and in Mississippi are closing and that furniture from those locations might be available and suitable for the new courthouse. The only cost to the City would be for transportation.
Belton said the furniture would have to be less than seven years old in order to be considered.
“I’ve offered to fly to Miami and Mississippi and take pictures of the furniture,” he said.
Lee objected to the plan.
She said the City would not have accepted used furniture when it built the new City Hall in 1997 and highlighted the wear on the furniture in Council chambers.
“Look how we’ve beat up these chairs,” Lee said.
“I’m all for cost savings, but I cannot believe the voters approved a new courthouse to furnish it with used furniture. I’m not for going out of town and looking at furniture,” she said.
Fourth Judicial Circuit Chief Judge Donald Moran said the judiciary has not agreed to securing used furniture for the new courthouse
“I’ve been assured that if this last jaunt across the country doesn’t produce furniture” that the City will purchase new furniture for the courts, Moran said.
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