Central courthouse and courtroom space
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Okay. Your honor?
Right, well thank you. All right, well I join our our our clerk uh Nikki in thanking you all for inviting me to be here and inviting me to have this opportunity to uh present to you um uh what I believe is probably one of the most significant things to uh the the Pascoa County needs in the upcoming uh uh kind of centuries, if you will. The uh what we have here. Thank you. We have The growth in Pasco County. And if you notice here, uh, and this
is kind of the low-hanging fruit, I know you know a lot of this, but nonetheless, I thought it was important to emphasize this because as the county grows, so do so does the reliance upon our court system. Remember, our court system deals with everything from criminal justice to probate to family law issues to uh guardianship issues. I I mean I could keep going on and I On, but we handle a myriad of offense, you know, a myriad of issues, civil cases. We want to attract businesses into our community. Businesses needed to have access
to the courts, and that and that is an important part of making Pasco and keeping Pasco a Premier County, as we all wish to do. And I guess this is probably not a good time as any to emphasize to you all, although I am the chief. Judge in Penelson Pasco County. I grew up in Pasco County. I'm a graduate of Gulf High. So I sit here as someone who's been here quite some time.
Brian, uh, it's changed a little bit since I got here in the early 70s, uh, as you might imagine. Uh so uh I am I am certainly Pasco County uh in my roots, and and the first Pasco County judge to be elected Chief Judge, which I think says a lot. about the uh uh how Pasco County is viewed within the court system and within our circuit. As you can see we are the third fastest growing county in the country according to this uh Technota News journal source in with USA Today in which they cite our census. Um I know this is all you
know just thank you. Um um I've got the best quicker person going here in Dunacy. Uh Like I said, I know this is uh kind of the low-hanging fruit, but you all uh you all know everything that you've been approving, all the people that have been moving in. I mean, uh just go south of the court courthouse and the court complex on Little Road and you all have approved thirty four hundred houses just in that area alone. We have this incredible growth and I think it says a lot about our community and it says a lot about our Board of County Commissioners and once
again I wanna thank uh Mike Ravallo and his staff are for working with us on on the the courthouse issues as well. They've been fabulous to work with. Um we have uh once again this growth is just uh we can go to the next one even yep you're ahead uh w you know you can see the number of uh and you all know this like I said this is kind of the easy stuff but with all this with these people come come issues come issues in which the court in which a courthouse is uh necessary and which is an integral part of the the uh infrastructure really
of Hasco County and to maintain it as a premier community.
Can
can um
Judge can you wait one second? I mean some of us can't read that at all. I don't know if it's my contacts are not right. I just switched seats out or something. No, I don't think he was sitting here, I think. So can we is this
Okay.
All right, thank you very much, Commissioner Oakley. I appreciate it. Um as I said, when we start this when we start this process out, and and Shannon tell me if I'm doing okay. Okay, thank you. Sounds good. As we start this uh process um uh uh when we start talking about this central court complex, we just talk about the growth of Pasco and I know this is kind of the easy part of this, the low-hanging fruit. What we really really anticipate and you all know the growth of our county. As the one slide indicated early on, third fastest growing
uh county in the state of Florida or in the in the country, I'm sorry, according to the census. Now so what happened was way back in the early uh I mean this started back in the eighties, nineties with John Gallagher, uh Dan Johnson, uh the the the prior uh administrator for Pasco County, uh they purchased land out at Land O' Lakes out on 41 for a uh jail and for a courthouse. And uh and because of that they got they started going all they they put Together a committee,
a committee of all the stakeholders, and you'll see them on the next slide. But of all the stakeholders, and said, you know, we need to uh get together. We need we know Pasco's gonna grow. We know we need a centralized courthouse. I think at one point in time, the then uh the then Sheriff Bob White said, you know, the people of Pasco are gonna demand a centralized kind of court uh facility um uh during one of the meetings and uh Because I believe me I've read through 23 years of notes, meetings, minutes, and everything else. And if we go to the next slide, uh you can see
these are the folks that are on it. You can see the court, the state attorney's office, the clerk, I mean uh the sheriff, uh Ann Hildebrand, person near and dear to my heart. Uh the at that time, the Pasco County uh Chairman, the Pasco County Board of County Commissioners. Um, and as you can see, it was well represented. This can Committee gets together and decides, yes, we need to really start working on having this central courthouse built. Everyone's in agreement that it needs to be done way back then, early, even into the early 2000s. Okay, if we can. And
so what happens is they start working on this trying to decide how to fund this courthouse because you know this is this is going to be a fairly significant capital improvement. Improvement project, so they're talking about uh they recognize the need and support, and we uh and the courts are always been willing to work with the county in any way we can to try to secure uh the this courthouse um for the future growth of Pasco County. Um once uh we got to the point uh in 2010, and
some of you may recall this, that we got green lighted for the project that we that we they were going to uh we were going to uh hire the architectural firm and uh started uh receiving proposals to build the courthouse on that campus and we have a a spot marked on the campus we're ready to go. Like you said we've been um uh uh very grateful working with the m with Mike and his team as far as uh uh you know knowing where this courthouse would need to be put on that property. At one point in time the courthouse was going to be
joined with the jail and it was going to be a single project. If we go to the next slide. We then hire HERI International, the County Board of County Commissioners selects HERI International for the design and build. Uh we uh contract with them, that is the contract amount seven seventy two thousand nine hundred. And um after a great deal of work uh for the for that basically two year period of time, uh they presented design package with uh uh and and we're kind of ready to go on that. So then um
what happens is after that The jail and it's determined that the jail and the courthouse, because of the the campus and apparently a number of other issues, uh, cannot be connected. So the the jail the courthouse becomes removed from the jail and the jails is a standalone issue, as you all know, and the and the jail is being constructed. Pasco County contracts with CGL about in 2005. So we move from 2012 to 2014
and say, okay, what is our master plan going to look like? What are we going to build out? And basically at that point in time, uh the folks you contracted with says, Well, the the the jail and the courthouse, the central courthouse, are the two top capital improvement projects. They are they are a priorities. They are they are the two top priorities. within Pasco County that needs to that that that will satisfy the needs of our constitu of our constituents, of our citizens for the one to five year build-out plan. Th there's an
RFI uh issued uh by PASCO for the Central Courthouse and and the language you see there is really from the the County RFI that talks about the main workload indicator for judicial departments is population growth. We have that. Court filings, you'll see those are up. Crime, well, I don't need to say anything more about that, and juvenile referrals. And uh and it talks about both juvenile uh I'm sorry, both judicial Center buildings are in overall good physical conditions but are stressed and that is the present courthouse in Dade City
and the present courthouse in in New Port Richey. They they are stressed so it makes sense to build that central uh complex
to take the stress off those two. Later on you'll see if we're able to do that, we're able to extend the life of those two side courthouses, the one in Dade City and New Pericee, by twenty years and that will accept the anticipated growth for probably uh as indicated by through through through these studies, for about the next twenty years. So what it really helps us a great deal in in l in in in the life expectancy of the East and West Pasco Courthouse. And I think it's important to note, even today, the
East Pasco Courthouse, because of the lack of security and a lack of number of other issues, would not even qualify as a criminal courthouse. because because the security issues because when it was initially built kind of way back when, you know, that that wasn't necessarily a primary concern, but certainly it is and I think the the Sheriff's uh office uh deals on with security issues and will be coming before the c uh Board of County Commissioners with regard to some of those concerns they have within those courthouses but most specifically East Pasco.
Once again, the uh the most recent study, once again, uh the uh CGL determined that a centrally located criminal justice center um would is really the most efficient use to extend the life of the two East Pasco-West Pasco courthouses, the one in New Perichi and Dade City, and and also to centralize the the work that can be done at The at the criminal courts complex. And we really need to just look south because in Penellas they did exactly the same thing, and
it really has been a very efficient way to serve the community there. Um and I'll get to more of that in a little bit. But um it it so throughout time pretty much this committee has determined uh and and even the the people that you all have hired. Do your studies for your management and your uh population growth and your projections have all pretty much said that this this courthouse is a need. We go from the 2016 where they actually
rate priorities, a priority once again. I mentioned that earlier. The 22 uh update says yes, it's it's number four on the list of uh and I don't know if they kind of prioritized it, but it's certainly number four on the Six to ten year plan, it is number four on that list for the needs for the citizens of Pasco County, as you can see. So, even like I said, the consultants that the county is is relying upon recognize the importance of this kind of centralized courthouse. And I just threw in the little thing at the bottom because the as we all know, if
anybody has ever tried to park at the uh West Pasco Courthouse, the parking's a mess when they opened it up for the first time. time so it's really tough to even uh say that we can even build on to that to that for instance the um uh because because of the limitation in space and that sort of thing and and when the when CGL and and the other companies did the uh analysis they looked at the they looked at the the the possibility of building on to the two side ones and determined that really wasn't a viable option That
wasn't really the best option to serve our community and because of the growth and the manner of the growth, the courthouses themselves, that it was really far more efficient the to serve our community to have a centralized courthouse and and a lot of communities are are going to that. If we go to the next one, um uh uh and I want to thank we have here our public defender Sarah Malo, I cannot thank her enough. We have a representative of the state attorney's office as well. Adam Ross, Bruce Bartlett wanted to be here but had a prior commitment. And
uh if you had any questions for them, they will tell you that the economy for them to uh uh economy of scale and efficiency to better uh to better um assist the the the citizens of Pasco County would be greatly enhanced by being able to consolidate their two st their two offices of from Dade City and New Paritie into a centralized complex. And I and I don't want to speak too much for them, but I feel very comfortable and confident that they are that they are in agreement with that. And like you said, I think they'd certainly answer
any um any uh uh conversation you may have with that or any questions you may have with regard to that. Um
And once again it i it extends by the by the county's own metrics, it extends the life of the two side courthouses because they're less stressed. So really we get we get we get better usage out of the out of the New Port out of the New Portchie and Dade City Courthouse for civil matters and then we uh and then we consolidate into uh uh uh into uh the central uh facility. If you look at this, this is this is what we should have by the matrix, like I said, of of counties
of our size, courthouses, uh, and these are the numbers that we get uh candidly from the county and from from the studies done by CGL and and some of the other updates for our master plan. We are already 228,000 square feet under what the courts system should have. We're already down two hundred and twenty-eight thousand. It's really right now, that was twenty twenty two, now I think it's like two hundred thirty six ish. You can see in t uh 2026 will be under 253,000 uh square
feet what we need, and it obviously just goes up as the county grows. So we're already these are and and they're in red on these graph for a reason. This is all what we would be in deficit of of what we would need to to better serve and to really serve uh at a minimal the the folks of our community. community. So I mean as you can see we're already kind of in the hole starting out. Um so certainly that that courthouse would be a big uh big help. If you look at this, this is our ratio of judges to courtrooms
as we con as we uh compare to the rest of the state of Florida. Uh the Sixth Circuit, we have 22 judges in Pasco County. We have 13.5 courtrooms. You'll see on this, many other circuits within the state are one to one, one judge to one courtroom, or maybe even greater than that, more courtrooms than they have judges. In Pasco, obviously we have a significant deficit of uh once again 22 judges, 13.5 courtrooms. And you can imagine that affects scheduling, it affects the ability. When
you're doing a uh uh for instance a family law case that has some uh uh contentiousness to it, you know, here you are trying to do it in chambers, people are sitting three feet across from each other, it's an ugly situation. It can get very ugly. Um you know, so there's there's certainly advantages and and meaningful and it really makes the process much more meaningful and important when you do it in a courtroom as compared to just trying to do it in chambers. So once again our ratio as you can see is much different than than many of the
other uh we've kind of grabbed these numbers uh um from other jurisdictions and this is kind of what they're telling us is that our our Our numbers are certainly not comparable to the other ones. If you look in the in the next uh in the uh Sumner Building Judicial Center over in Dade City, the Sumner Courthouse, four and a half courtrooms, nine judges, and just trying to juggle um courtrooms and and juggle uh hearings and and everything that just try to schedule all these things can really become a very difficult
task. I mean because you need These courtrooms to conduct court, yet you know we just don't have the space. We don't uh a and and kind of an interesting anecdotal story that I was talking to Judge Poblick about. He he came out of his chambers, turned the corner the other day and came face to face with somebody who was on trial for murder. Um because uh the that that's just the way the courthouse is set up as he tried to get to his courtroom. So um uh you know, sometimes uh those things could potentially be very ugly and those are some of the security concerns I
I previously mentioned. New Paritci, uh nine courtrooms, thirteen judges, same issues. Um we we do our best to try to juggle those courtrooms. We've built out as much as we can within that. I can tell you my office for instance in New Paritie was a was j uh just a regular staff staff office. Um uh I can tell you that one of our judges was in a prior server room for the computers. Um my office is w sometimes referred to as the broom closet. Um and I feel fine with that, but um my
point is we've kinda built out as much as we can. We've done the same and and tried to be very efficient use you know, uh stewards of of uh of of the funds of the county and and done our best to try to build out and be really fiscally responsible within the each courtro each courtroom uh and each courthouse on each both sides of the county. If we go to the next one, you can see our filings up. I mean this is a theme we've heard from everybody that the county is growing. There's more uh pressure on the uh there's
more pressure on the clerk's office because they're hearing more and more and more more and more uh filings cases coming through there. office. Well those cases have to go somewhere. We built we built a new jail because we n we needed that because the gr the growth in the county well pretty much everyone who's in that jail has to come through the court system. So, you know, we build we build the uh a jail the house more because we need more, but then uh we need to also understand that there's a trickle effect to that, that literally every single one of those people uh in some way, shape or
form comes through the court system. So so we need to recognize, yeah, our filings are going up, they're gonna continue to go up as uh as our as our population continues to grow. Uh benefits of Casco County. It's really just gonna be a good convenience for our our citizens to be able to split the w the way we've we've talked about. Transportation, uh right now they have to drive from the jail to both sides of the county in vans and sometimes there'll be nine and ten and vans full of inmates being
transported all over the county. Well uh I don't have to tell you the liability that subjects you all to. All it's going to take is one one van to get in an accident, and all of a sudden the county's going to be subject to twelve different suits. You know, so or fifteen or however many people they they put in those vans. Uh long term it's a little once again, long-term cost saving for the ki for the county. And we talked about the as the county grows, as the caseload grows, as the as the number of judges grows, the anticipated in In 2035, in one of the studies that was done by
your consultants, it was anticipated that we would have to have uh 31 uh judges up here just to handle the increased workload as opposed to the 22 that we have now. So, and also we talked about security. So, I mean, these are uh uh obviously in the security is to keep our citizens who use the courthouse safe, our jury. Who come in to use the courthouse safe, the staff, the judiciary, the bailiffs, to keep everybody in a much uh safer uh situation uh than than we
really have now. So we we keep kind of putting band-aids on that, trying to do our best to maintain that safety, to maintain our citizens' uh safety, but at some point in time, you know, the growth is gonna just overwhelm us. Um I would point out um uh commissioner oakley if you want to hopefully if we build this if you want a nice room to have another hearing near the east side you know we I'm I'm volunteering the courthouse for that right now so we can go ahead and have that. I'll volunteer that right up front. And
um but once again and I would like to said we have the good fortune to have both our our public defender here and a representative of the state attorney's office And they've been gracious enough to answer any questions or how this would affect them in a positive way. Uh this everybody uh everybody sitting here is gonna talk about the growth of our county, how that impacts our county, how that how and the and the difference in the importance that is to being a premier community. I will share with you that I'm in the process of talking with the folks in Penellas because they're moving
uh they're a bunch of Of their government, they're consolidating, once again, consolidating uh some of their their uh uh constitutionals uh uh into another um area of Pinellas County. That would include the courthouse. So they're gonna be building a courthouse down there as well, and they're going into some of the same funding issues that that you all are gonna be addressing with regard to this. So I suggested and I took and I talked to to um Mr. Breinbach and and Mr. Kabala about
uh you know maybe talking to them to see how they're gonna do it because they've already they've already committed to that and they already know that there's gonna be some debt in incurred as a result of that. the the the the the reports are the media reports on that are that their their campus is going to be anywhere from two hundred and eighty to uh three hundred and thirty million dollars for them to to consolidate and and build the new courthouse and build the new have a place for the tax collector and the clerk and property appraiser and all
the other functions down there uh county administration You know, permits and all that sort of thing down there in one spot on 22 acres uh off Homerton Road. So uh so they're gonna be going through a lot of the same kind of issues you are as far as financing and that sort of thing. And you know, uh it's uh uh I'm kind of available for any kind of questions you may have. I think it's interesting to note as we sit here, I believe, and y'all can correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the campus of the school that that a
school was approved, the school was built, and by the time the school was finished being built, now there's gonna have to be a ten million dollar wing built on it because the growth has already surpassed what you what was anticipated. So I mean and and so even if we put a shovel in the ground today, this wouldn't be built for a while and there's still gonna be incredible growth of Pasco. And it says a lot about you all. It says a lot about Pasco County. It says a lot about the the government and how we work here because if if if that wasn't true people wouldn't want to move here and people
wouldn't want to live here and people wouldn't want to make this their their their kind of forever home and clearly we're the third fastest growing county so I think it says a lot about the county and how how it's administered but it also you know it's you take the good with the bad we're doing really well so more people want to move in but by virtue of more people want to moving in it causes us to have more issues and and have to keep keep up with that growth and that's literally I think probably for everybody sitting here at this table. Are there any uh uh any questions I can answer?
I'd just like to thank you for bringing that forward. Uh we've talked I've been the County Commissioner I'm in my eighth year and for this period in time we've talked about this fourth house Many times. I don't think we've ever come up with how to pay for it. But that is an issue we're gonna have to look at. We looked at detention. I mean, if detention had been deferred for years and years, and finally we put out a bond issue and got money, won't we hope the addition
of a thousand beds, and we only because of inflation and all the other costs coming Because of all the growth, we were only providing about somewhere between 550 and 600 beds with that same money. So I mean inflation all hit, and it really costs to do a lot of things. And this courthouse is going to cost more than it would have if we built it 10 years ago.
Sure,
oh
sure.
So it just continues to grow. Our population of those. Somewhere in the 700,000s now, we're moving toward a million people, and the more we move, the more people who come in that want to live here, want to have what people have had here for many, many years, and they're gonna come. And I mean we've got to figure out a way to be able to afford to do this and actually to because a certain percentage of those people that move in are going. gonna have a problem.
And it causes a problem and it causes a problem with the ripple effect. Uh the more you got come in, the more problems you'll have for the judicial system. The sheriff's gonna have more issues coming and the clerk's got more people to to deal with. And just on and on our when I first got elected we had uh all the parts were had deferred maintenance for Twenty years. But I mean, that's because it wasn't taken care of for the twenty years prior to us getting there. Right. But then we presented
that and the citizens of Pasco County actually voted for those fund issues to take care of a lot of these issues to bring them up up to stuff. But even that, our parks were behind our parks are growing like crazy because all the people in the coming. And we still have more and more costs to our park systems and our sheriffs having the same issues. I know in the judicial systems having an issue, but we can't keep kicking that can down the road for these items not to be
taken care of because we need these items to come forth. Now, it's easy to say that, but it's very hard to get that money to be able to attack. that we need to be looking at that and do that.
And and I as I said I've had c conversations with uh with your our neighbors to the south and they're like, Well this is the first time we're gonna go into debt because we're gonna have to build these things. Yeah and so the they're they're kind of recognizing exactly what you pointed out, Commissioner, that this needs to be done. Regardless of how we we you know we can't just keep ignoring it. So they're so uh and I really appreciate your your words because I I think you've really nailed it. Uh yeah, I mean it's a great place to live, but that with that comes certain responsibilities. And
and and the responsibilities also fall upon us as the court system as well to try to do our very best uh to manage that. And uh and we're we're gonna continue to do so. And we want to be good partners with you all. We want to work hard with you all and and do our very best to to uh you know uh uh uh have a county commission that's is bold enough and has the courage enough to want to put their names on the side of a building like this that's gonna serve the community for decades to come, that is a that's gonna be a great thing and that's I I think something
that that is kind of one of our
really fortunate here in Pasco County. We probably have the greatest citizens that'll step forward and know It's gonna cost them money, but they're willing to step forward and vote for those bond issues, those things that that puts us forward, knowing they're gonna be paying that back. Uh our citizens have done that before now. I'm sure they're there to do it again. Because we I think we have the best citizens in in all of Florida.
Well I'm a little biased too, so I still look here at everything, so I understand what
you're saying. That's right.
Uh Mr. Wayne. Thank you, Chair. Something to think about at a later discussion for a later day, maybe have Chief Judge and his team come as we go through our let a call of history lesson from Ralph, our legislative ask if we narrow this to a big ticket item and maybe we come to a consensus that we we add it add it to the list. That way it's not such a big big bite for us here locally. Um but just something I think that might be worth discussing at our legislative
delegation meetings and as we move forward and if there's consensus it might be might be a fun conversation to have.
And we're willing to work with you in any way we can. I I and I think I think uh I think uh Mike Carballo agree we you know I we've always been open to try to work with you all the time best we can and to be and also candidly be good stewards of the taxpayers' money. I mean I think that's another important part of this. To be fiscally responsible.
Did you have this question? No. Um couple of couple of questions. I I have many friends who are attorneys and I have close friends who are going through court issues and they're all online. So how is that is is the online Zoom court hearings helping you deal with your problem and do you see that as with technology helping
Yeah, that's a great question. We we've kind of had to do had to do some of that. We had to do some of that during COVID, and now just because of space, we we kind of have to do that. But the difficulty is I have lawyers coming to me now saying, look, we're not accomplishing what we normally would accomplish. When you come to court, you know, the lawyers are there, they talk together, they're not sitting in their spare bedroom, you know, somewhere else in Orlando or whatever, trying to To do these things, we they come together, the judge can you know talk to them, go out in the hall, talk about this, resolving. So I have j judge a couple lawyers coming to me going,
Look, we got to stop doing as much as this, but I say we can't because we have, like you say, you great point. We you know, we don't have enough courtrooms. We literally cannot do this. So we're doing some things by Zoom. And if you think about it, it just makes sense. If you're just sitting there, you know, and they say, Well, can we resolve this case? and you're sitting there in your living room and somebody's sitting off there next to you, you know, coaching you or doing whatever, we can't see them on camera. So we're so these cases are even taking longer. Like it's like domestic violence cases, you know, the new boyfriend or girlfriend sitting up
there going. You know, we can't see that and so we're not resolving the cases like we w like we could. Um and so, you know, there there's really something to be said for uh for coming to court, resol you know, getting uh cases moving through the system, resolving them in an appropriate manner. That's that that may not be satisfactory to everybody, but you know, many times, you know, as I used to tell people when I did family, you're not gonna get everything you want. It's just not gonna happen but we can at least try to reach a a resolution that people can look at.
Two more questions. Um thank you now don't get mad at me.
But um I remember when we um had a facilities update 'cause I think we just did a facilities master plan, um, it showed that the clerk had a surplus of place. I'm not saying the judges in the courts, I'm saying the clerk. So had a surplus of place. Of square footage. And it was fairly insignificant So um I wonder if there's some opportunities there.
Well we've already in in uh uh we've already I don't know, I wanna don't wanna say taken. We've already had the opportunity to work with the clerk in Dade City and we actually that's where the HAP Court room came in. We took the law library there and we were able to make a a a small quorum that we can use for like injunctions and things like that. And and like I said, some of these things, like you said, a perfect example of things that need to be done in court. V domestic violence injunctions, stalking injunctions, you know, dating violence, all these things should be
done in court because you know, we need to make sure that we impress upon the the person not to have any further contact if that's what's appropriate. And uh the clerk's office we were now able to really work with them as good partners and we we built that other little court. Room out and that really helped us quite a bit in Dade City. I mean it's still four and a half, but that half helps us, you know, every little bit helps.
Um, and my last question, and and uh I hope it's a a quick answer because I know we have a lot to do. Um, are there do you are you aware if there are grants available, either federal or state, to help build these courts?
We've been kind of looking into that uh the best we can. Uh there's some difficult. With that, but I like the idea of maybe trying to work with the legislature a little bit and trying to get some additional funding there. Um I I l I like that idea. Um the Like I said, I'm uh we're we're we're open to working in any way we can. We have not found any grants truly uh that that would fit that bill. Uh a good example is just this year they funded the um uh the courthouse, the Bernie McCabe Second District Court of Appeals fund for the it was on the abdocket
it was on for three years and they finally funded it this year and that was uh so it took kind of some time to get that done. but the legislature did kick in the money for that and uh as far as I know that has not been vetoed at this time.
All right. Anything else? Mr.
Marinard, thank you. You said that um you didn't want to get the at the jail, you didn't want to connect to what we do.
Well, uh we were it was initially gonna be connected. That's what I think. And but then the decision was made that that because of the footprint of the jail for possible future jail expansion, that it be that it'd be removed from there and to be more convenient for the public, it was gonna be put further out toward the road. And that was hold on unfortunate, a meeting that I the the one meeting I didn't attend, apparently that was decided at that meeting. Um I know Bernie McCain was there, I know Bob Dillinger was there. Um uh but I w I wasn't able to attend that meeting and
uh but they determined that it was better to move it out toward the road, like I said, for potential future jail expansion and just the I guess the the layout Th uh I I don't know. I think there were many reasons but I I can't really speak to all of them but I w I wish it stayed I wish it was connected.
So you're speaking of this let's say a virtual communication with the prisoners and the family?
Well w w the that w we we we can do that but also just the transportation now like I said they're they'll drive from pretty much the front of that lot to to the courthouse, the front of that lot and the courthouse. So that minimizes certainly the liability for the county as far as driving them all over the county, you know, you know, literally van upon look you'll sit there and you'll see and and uh and I I know Nikki's seen this as well, van upon van upon van upon van coming to the courthouse 'cause, you know, people are in custody, we need to resolve their cases.
Now the old the old courthouse here the courthouse here used to have the jail was right
beside.
They shut that down years ago.
Yes.
What was the impact on that?
Well uh the w the impact on that was obviously much the same. All of a sudden now we're uh now we're because it was determined that it was uh fun I guess uh more efficient to have the jail in the central location, uh that they that uh we we weren't able to bring people over. I guess one of the best analogies, I think your question's a good one, is in Penellas if you need someone because the jail and the courthouse are connected, you know someone needs to come in for their cases or you need to bring witnesses in or whatever. They literally walk through a tunnel and they're in the courthouse. There
they are and and so there's no transportation, there's no hey we gotta get on the phone and maybe we get this person here this afternoon or they have to run a special van or maybe court runs late, the vans leave, some deputy now has to drive the person to Land O' Lakes. They they were able to uh avoid kind of all of that by being connected to it and that's why initially I thought that was really the best plan and the best idea because it really it really streamlined everything and made it that much more efficient. So yeah, that's a great question. Do you think with the new jail
edition going on Couldn't we build a coat office that would make that connection smooth as you know? I was told before that that that was n that they that the decision had been made to move it out toward the the further out toward the road for the public for parking. Because I guess that's a big issue there as far as how the parking lot is configured and the and and people would uh the jurors would have to park so far away that you know at 96 degrees in August by the time they got in, you know, we'd be showering 'em off just to try to get 'em to to be a
little cooler. So that's why it was my understanding that they moved it out more toward the road to have the parking around it to make it more accessible for the public.
I I think it's a it'd be good for us to have a full presentation from the board. Go through this whole thing, uh maybe in a site visit call go up there and go look at it as a room
at some point to get it. Whatever you need. I'm I am at your beck and call. So I was
going to
work forward
there.
Um
when the airport was built, um they built it for themselves, but they also built some extra office space. You mentioned like a private partnership. Do you see, especially with I I've got to think there's a bunch of bunch of attorneys that would like to be right there, other folks as well, do you see the benefit to building a bigger structure that we would even need? To kind of
accommodate that and help offset some of the costs. I I think that's once again they looked into that previously because I thought that was a good idea back then. We were we were all in on that as well. And you know, the other thing that that they did uh you know kind of south of here is um when they built that courthouse, they shelled some courtrooms. So, because you know, once you get the big building built, you can just shell some of them out, and then as as the population grew, they Didn't have to add on, they didn't have to add another wing. They just said, okay, we're gonna build this one out, we're gonna build that one out. And eventually they
they filled that courthouse up, the the Justice Center, and anybody who wants to take a tour of that, and they've had to build an annex onto that because of the growth, even in even in Pinellas. The growth they had to build an annex with additional courtrooms and chambers and staff positions and all that sort of thing. So they had to build build a a a whole separate annex uh kind of on that campus as well that's connected to the other building. Right. Well
I think it's good for like a
again
for you to come to see us. Let's go talk about it, let's go on site and maybe we'll bring some state legislators out there as well. We're just gonna talk about it.
Whatever you need. I'm like the bad penny, you're not gonna get uh we're not gonna get worried about you guys know that, I mean so I'm not telling you anything you don't know. It's like oh here he comes again.
Thank
you. Mr.
Cavallo, yeah Mr. Chairman Mariano say this is you know great uh great layout, Your Honor. Thank you for that. Uh it's it's clear this is a several hundred million dollar capital capital investment. Um and and so we're gonna need to develop a funding strategy for that. I think it would Be a combination of grants, which we're already looking into that, uh, uh legislative assets or appropriations at the state and federal level, as well as debt, and maybe even some cash. So we can sit back and answer your appointment, Commissioner, as we go through the budgeting process. Uh you know, maybe
that's uh we can start looking at that so we can hammer that out because it will take several years for that to come to fruition, and it's obviously a need today. So if we don't start with taking action to develop a funding strategy then we won't make any progress to it.
I'd just like to make sure that's a short term look so when you start it's yeah
I don't like
long projects at my age. I don't see them become fruition
and uh
I'm right there with you I'm with you on that one that's for sure. And as I even suggested I said you guys maybe want to kind of see What they're doing because they're gonna be funding 330 million south of here. So say, hey, how are you guys gonna be funding this as well? Absolutely. See if there's some good strategies. Like you guys talked about kind of economy of getting together on some of these contracts and things like that. Hey, you know, good, you know, dialogue's good, communication's good.
Thank you for your presentation.
No, thank you, but and uh and I sincerely mean it, and I know that my Mike, I think we'll we'll verify that because we had some really good meetings with he and his team and and Eric and everything. And you know, whatever you guys need, I'm there. I'm gonna be there for you. Like I said, this is my community. I grew up here. I think this is an important part of what we do. So I do this not only as the chief judge, but also as somebody who lives here and grew up here. I think it's important to to see Pasco grow and and thrive and be that premier community.