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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes 03-27-2008 COURT FACILITIES SPACE NEEDS COMMITTEE Minutes of Meeting March 27, 2008 Convened: Adjourned: 2:05 p.m.3:02 p.m. CALL TO ORDER Commissioner Craft called the meeting to order at 2:05 p.m. in Conference Room # 3, 2300 Virginia Avenue, Fort Pierce, Florida. ROLL CALL Roll call was taken. Members Present: Commissioner Chris Craft Councilwoman Michelle Berger, Port St. Lucie Chief Judge Roby Edwin Fry, Clerk of the Courts Bruce Colton, State Attorney Tom Genung, Court Administrator Mark Godwin, SLC Criminal Justice Coordinator Roger Shinn, SLC Central Services Director Members Absent: Mayor Bob Benton, Fort Pierce Diamond Litty, Public Defender Sheriff Ken Mascara Others Present: Don McLam, SLC Central Services APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES: The minutes from the January 31, 2008 meeting were unanimously approved. OLD BUSINESS: Mr. Shinn brought drawings of the SLW Courthouse and showed where they have space for the two story 20,000 sq ft building. Commissioner Craft said we could move all the Constitutional Officers out of the courthouse and into the new building. Mr. Shinn replied yes. Court Facilities Space Needs Committee March 27, 2008 Page 2 Mr. Godwin said maybe consider instead of building the building it may be cheaper to rent the Constitutional Officers that are in the building. Location may be in Tradition or something just to get them out. Mr. Shinn said he has spoken to Jeff Furst and that would be what he would like to do. Both he and Bob Davis have discussed the possibility of maybe finding a location in Traditions or down Gatlin in that area. Commissioner Craft asked if they were paying us for the space they are using at the courthouse. Mr. Shinn said the County is to provide all spaces to the Constitutional Officers. stnd Mr. Shinn presented the drawings of the 1 and 2 floor of Phase II Southern County Annex. He feels it would be in the County’s best interest if we could relocate Property Appraiser and Supervisor of Election and then we could keep the whole operation within the building and not have to rent modulars. Mr. Colton asked if Sam’s Club is completely out of the question now and he was answered yes. He said unlike to move to Sam’s we would need permanent office space for 4 offices a secretarial area and storage for 2 lawyers a paralegal a victim advocate and 2 secretaries. Mr. Shinn said he thinks we could accommodate them. We have $800,000 that has been earmarked. If we can keep things inside and start looking at construction building the courtrooms I can start getting prices that should be the next thing to do. Mr. Colton said Crime Stoppers has 3 fulltime employees and serves all of the 4 county areas. Crime Stoppers serves all law enforcement in the 4 county area. Funded partly by grants, law enforcement agency, the sheriff’s office and SLC provides a lot of funds for them and fund raisers. These people are actually employed with the Sheriff but it’s not the Sheriff’s program. The Sheriff has employed them on behalf of Crime Stoppers. Crime Stoppers is an entity and they can not employ them. Commissioner Craft said the question is we need to check with the Sheriff on this. If it is serving the 4 county areas we need to make sure we are getting reimbursement from the other 3 counties. Commissioner Craft said he would like to see what funds are available for public building impact fees. Mr. McLam said Commissioner getting back to your question on downtown what we are doing is we are going to request the BOCC not move forward with the monumental stairwell and not move forward with the renovation of the church parking lot. Take those funds and put them into the Judicial Courthouse Complex as a single fund and then expend those monies on Phase I which is Level I and Level II of the Clerk of the Court and then going into Phase IA which is the completion of the annex phase which is the additional courtrooms including the elevators and those types of things. If we don’t do that we find ourselves short in money in accomplishing those 2 Court Facilities Space Needs Committee March 27, 2008 Page 3 tasks. Mr. Godwin said for Crime Stoppers we have a place in front of the old Civic Center. We prepared that area it was the snack bar area. Roger and his staff prepared it for Regional Council and so it’s sitting there. All you have to do is bring in the desks. That would open up the space for Crime Stoppers. Commissioner Craft said we’ll look at funds that are available and I will talk to Doug Anderson as well. I said it last month with what the economy is doing and what our taxes are right now not having the funding to hire new staff not having the funds to build additional jail space we’ve got to make sure we are keeping up with the courts. The courts have got to be efficient, and if we don’t have the space available for judges and the whole staff that takes the support off of them we are going to be busting at the seams worse than we ever imagined at the jail. We’ll come up with something some how some way. Mr. Fry said last time under New Business we had talked about the covered walkway. I didn’t know if you had a chance to look at that. Mr. Shinn said we talked about that. We went over and looked and took measurements. We had a couple concerns and 1 was if we just build a aluminum type walkway how the weather was going to handle that and if we use a cloth top how long that would last. Chief Judge Roby said he was talking to the SLC Bar members about a separate entrance with a security badge and everything and them paying $100 and some odd dollars a year. I’m getting the numbers from Lieutenant Harding and it looks like it is doable. That will reduce pressure on the other entrance. Commissioner Craft said we will take a look at it tomorrow on the tour. NEW BUSINESS: There was no new business discussed. ADJOURNMENT: Commissioner Craft adjourned the meeting at 2:50 p.m. Submitted by, Carol Strobert THE NEXT MEETING WILL BE May 29, 2008