Travis County Commissioners Court
December 13, 2005
Item 5
Number 5. Consider and take appropriate action on certain space planning issues, including: a. Elected officials requests regarding reallocating space in the blackwell-thurman criminal justice center and the use of existing resources for further planning efforts for court needs; and b. The current approved strategy to develop a general government campus. >> good afternoon.
>> good afternoon.
>> [indiscernible] planning and budget office. [papers shuffling - audio interference] this item is intended to hopefully putting into context some of the issues that you have been grappling with as you look at property acquisitions as well as to I think put into greater context the overall picture of what's going on in your downtown campus and the strategy adopted in your capital facility strategic plan related to trying to maximize resources downtown for the court system. Obviously one of the key components is the black well thurmon criminal justice center. To go over a few things real quickly, that facility was designed with the expansion for the criminal courts in mind. It contemplated floor to floor heights within the base structure of the building so that you could drop courts down through the building as the need arose to do that. So although you have built out 12 courtrooms at the time of construction, which was anticipated to get you to where you are today, which is 2005, there was a plan to say indicate some -- say indicate vacate some individuals from the building, move people out, drop more courts into the building as the need for that arose. Where you find yourself today is at a point where you have to contemplate pulling the trigger on that expansion. I also wanted to make note during the fy '06 budget process, p.b.o. Reviews all of the requests for f.t.e. That are going to come before the Commissioners court in -- in conjunction with facilities management to try on make sure that we can accommodate those f.t.e. In office space. And that they are appropriately accommodated meaning that they, you know, they have an office and -- and they are not -- not necessarily using all of our conference rooms for office spaces if we are getting to the point where we are contemplating doing that, we want to make sure that facilities what time to prepare a project to bring forward that would trigger some sort of expansion for that department. That's where we found ourselves in fiscal 2006 twks. There are several tenants in the complex that can no longer accommodate the staff that they are going to be allocated. They are at the point of needing to either renovate interp neal or house -- owe internally or you are housing people in space that was not originally contemplated to house those individuals. On top of which you were authorized as an additional district criminal judge, with an expectation that that judge will take the bench in January of 2007. So that was kind of the last straw to issues that we already saw building on the criminal justice center itself. In addition to that, you added a collections unit to the lobby space of that building. Which is functioning adequately, but as you continue to add courts to the building, you may find the need to recapture part of that lobby space, simply for the volume of traffic that's going to come into play. So that's where we found ourselves in '06. I also wanted to make note that the building was originally designed to carry the tenants to December of 2003. We are now in December of 2005. So you have made good use of the space that's been built out. You didn't occupy it in 1998 as originally anticipated, but you are experiencing the growth patterns that you -- that were anticipated for these departments to experience. The other thing that I wanted to note for you was that the -- the Travis County sheriff's office occupies the galt building portion, which is technically part of the criminal justice complex. But you know it as a separate structure that's only attached on the first floor to the cjc tower. The space in that gault building was originally designed to house all of the sheriff's department. You were presented by former sheriff frasier with a plan to decentralize certain portions of the sheriff's off the to create an east and west command center. In 1998 you actually purchased the callier center and put a portion of the individuals who are supposed to occupy space in the d.f.w. Ault building in the callier center. This is why the sheriff actually fit into the galt building when they moved in. Had you had to put everyone in, you wouldn't have been able to accommodate the sheriff's office in the gault building. Also the command center ... This is why you walk through, sometimes you see pockets of what appears to be underutilized space. There hasn't been any renovation for the sheriff's office performed to capture that space. You have portions of the building where they have growth problems, portions of the building that are underutilized, as a whole the square footage suits them. It needs to either be renovated or have a different home, which is I think part of what I talked to you about. Planning and budget is -- christian smith is chair of the planning space committee, I am staff to that committee. I was approached by some of the tenants of the criminal justice center to readdress the concept adopted by the Commissioners court in your capital strategic plan that says at the point that you need to move someone out of the cjc to accommodate the growth for the court and other tenants, relocate the district attorney's office. Members of the space planning committee wanted to readdress that, to go back to the original plan under which the building was designed which called for the relocation of the sheriff's office from this complex so that the district attorney's office would grow around into the gault building as the courts dropped down through the building. I was asked to approach the sheriff's office to discuss whether or not they would be amenable to that change. We did so, the sheriff was amenable to that change. At the same time you were also presented with a property acquisition opportunity and so very quickly we got several issues tied together because of the discussion of a potential acquisition. So one of the things that -- that we did at the direction of the court was ask the elected officials that would be impacted by the gault building being vacated to come together to buy into a concept under which they could reallocate the space in the gault building. This is something that we would have worked on anyway, planning and budget and space planning commitment, staff was already contemplating to do work this year to make a request to vacate someone from the site. We would have been bringing that forward through the space planning committee. So the elected officials got together with facilities management and in a series of four meetings put together what you see as exhibit 9, which is their support of relocating the sheriff's office, which is a very first thing they asked that the Commissioners court please consider relocating the majority of the sheriff's office from the complex, understanding that there are certain functions of the sheriff's office that support the court and they will need to stay. They include bonding and courthouse security, central warrants, the segis team, a small group of it folks, the central booking liaison for obvious reasons, central booking is in the basement of the building and tdc pia representative, mike can tell you more about what that is exactly.
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>> what that means is that the magistrate who is currently performing the rocket docket and missile docket function for -- that you're aware of because of the jail overcrowding issues would be operating out of this courtroom that's in the jail. It is staff intensive for the sheriff's office because this courtroom is not on the inmate elevator route, to get the number of individuals that need to go to those dockets, to that courtroom in an efficient fashion. So the sheriff has agreed that they would continue to do that, and the judges have agreed that they would try to vacate that courtroom and pull the magistrate function, particularly the rocket docket and missile docket functions, back into the tower portion of the cjc, which has inmate elevators that go directly from the court holding area in the basement up to the court holding area on the court floors. If you recall the design that's done for a very specific reason, it's very staff efficient, it's very safe for the public to have the inmates transferred that way. What we're contemplating is that if the sheriff vai indicates the gault building, the district attorney's office would move their functions that are on the third floor of the tower structure over into the gault building and that you would actually fit out the third floor of the cjc floor into courtrooms. You would have a magistrate's court that would be slightly smaller than the other courtrooms and the support facilities that go with that. That means inmate elevator, holding cells, and the suite chambers for the junk and his staff. You would have staff for two additional courtrooms. One of those would contemplate the request that is likely to come forward as a repeat request to support a county court at law going forward to the legislature in the next legislative session, and we believe that the numbers are there that you will be able to support that. It would leave one full court open to use in visiting judge hours or at change of venue cases or it would be there ready for the next court that is created if you don't move forward with multiple courts in the next legislative session. We also determined that the district clerk's office could stay in their existing space as long as we were assured that the water leaks and/or water damage to that area that have been occurred over time are repaired. Roger has presented some information indicating that they are repaired. We do want to follow that issue to make sure that there are no maintenance issues in the clerk space, and would like to avoid the disruption of having to move the clerk. The office of court administration would be expanded so they're not expanded on other floors. Right now that office has taken on multiple duties that were not originally contemplated when they're space was originally sized and designed and they currently have folks located in office suites up in the tower portion of the building. And these folks are projected to double occupy offices that were not intended to be occupied that way on an interim basis until such time as the project could be fitted out to actually expand and consolidate they're space. So this is a need that we saw coming in the fy '06 budget process that you would be taking care of by following this road map of what the elected officials are asking. But you would continue to retain a visiting conferencing area somewhere in the building. It currently on the second floor, I believe. And it has been there since you started piloting it. It may stay there, but we just wanted the flexibility for roger to be able to evaluate all the needs and determine the highest and best place to that to be. A connection will be made from the third floor of the gault building to the second floor of the cjc. What this would do is by removing the third floor district attorney's folks to the third floor of the gault building you can physically attach the third floor of the gault building with the second floor of the cjc and would allow the district attorney's office to function as if they were on a single floor will although they have some space on the first floor as well. So it provides them some consolidation and it prevents them from having to go down through the cjc tower, across the building lobby and back up an elevator in the gault building to actually visit someone else in their own office. So this is for security reasons is a good idea and for efficiency reasons is a good idea for the da's office. I?ve already covered the next item, which is the court expansions. There also may be some minor space issues that need to be addressed for i.t.s. He has asked to we not leave them out of the overall planning process. And if there is something that needs to be addressed, that it be addressed. That is something that we will need to continue to look at. It's simply listed here to make you aware of the fact that as we're allocating space there might be something that needs to be addressed there. Any remaining available space in the gault building would be considered for consolidation in the following order, that drug court would be moved from lease space into the gault building. Drug court works through court administration with debra hail to the -- reporting to the district judges. They are in leased space. There would be a savings associated with that. If there's space remaining in the gault building, we would propose that the county's lease for drug court be eliminated and that these folks move into county owned space.
>> do we anticipate having enough space left?
>> we do anticipate that. The next issue to look at would be the district attorney's special prosecution unit. The reason that these would be second is simply because this is currently a lease that's paid by the state, but they are also in leased space and that would consolidate the district attorney's office. This also allows you to use any space that might be remaining in the gault building by a portion of a tenant that you might be able to contemplate moving back out if you need the space in the future. That is also true of drug court. They don't have to be with court administration, but it certainly is a good use of the space to consolidate them. In addition to these things for the gault building, --
>> ms. Powell, have we chatted with the state about them paying us rent if we move the da's special prosecution unit?
>> I would ask our district attorney -- I would ask that the district attorney's office actually address that, and mr. Earle is here.
>> good afternoon. Judge, we have every intention of approaching the state with that request. That the state would pay rent to Travis County for an amount roughly equivalent to what's being paid now.
>> or a little bit less.
>> don't we have indication that that is not something that they would do? We've been told that the state will not reimburse the county if you move -- if you move them into space -- is that a fact or is that something that's here say?
>> I think it's all on the table, Commissioner. And so we haven't asked them -- we've been asking this question for the last couple of weeks and we haven't asked them yet. You haven't been in the session where the question was asked. I?m asking the people that have been in the room when we say we're going to ask that question when it's obvious that we haven't asked that question to date.
>> well, I think that a great deal depends on who you ask that question of. Ultimately it's the decision of the legislature, and I think that depending upon who you ask the question might change. And so it's very difficult to say today that you can ask this person or this office and you can get this answer and you can put that in the bank and in the budget as something you can depend on because I don't think you can at this point.
>> I guess what we're trying to get down to, is there any indication of when we could have a definite answer one way or the other? Because what I?m looking at in all of this transition, the domino effect in my mind of dealing with the courtrooms and moving people out of the gault building, people to the gault building, is the cost offset that we will be looking at, whether it be a revenue generator, possible revenue generator as far as public integrity, those kind of things, and also the lease savings that may be realized from such news. And I guess I?m just trying to fit it all -- I guess all of us are trying to fit it together because there are going to be some cost offsets. And I guess what would be a good ballpark time one way or the other to get a definite answer on that?
>> well, I wish I could answer that question, Commissioner. And I guess the best I could say is that there's a special session scheduled for the spring. We might be able to get some indication by then of what the tenor of the response might be. And we can proceed to -- perhaps Commissioner with your assistance, make forays into venues where we might be able to count on an answer by the middle of the spring.
>> I have also prepared a payback analysis for the property in question that you've been looking at that make some assumptions about lease savings that I?ll be presenting to you in executive session about avoided costs and actual lease savings. I will say that they do not project -- they don't project revenue from the district attorney's office necessarily, continue to pay rent. That's footnoted on here. But I do have an analysis to show you right now, assuming that there isn't revenue associated.
>> mr. District attorney, what you have here and now as far as what's being proposed, and I guess all the elected officials are going to have to say something later one way or the other as we go forward with this process, the move to the gault building, there's something that you basically are happy with? In other words, that's something that's minimal and something that you feel that you can live with this if we were to proceed in the direction that we're going?
>> thank you for that question, Commissioner. And I would say that the district attorney's office is interested in being a good neighbor and we're interested in what works best for the public. That's who we all work for. And a couple of things are important to us. One is that we stay together as an office, that we don't have satellite people out in other places. That's important to the public. The public has an interest in that. And we're happy to move the family justice division, administration and our files from the third floor, but we would need to be adjacent to that building, and we would need the space in the gault building to be able to do that and we would also need a passageway in between. As has been pointed out both for security reasons and for reasons of simple economy of movement, make no sense to go up and down elevators when you can build a hall and save money, time, and more importantly, attention to the public's office business. So we are happy to move. We can stay together, and if we can have us a connecting link between the two. We also are very much interested in moving public integrity in to the rest of the da's office so it's not separated out.
>> public integrity unit. [overlapping speakers].
>> we have largesse in Travis County.
>> are there elected officials here, and actually, roger, and before we get on to some of the special needs requests, if you have any questions of them.
>> there's one preliminary question here first. And that is I would love it if this was like this is all we would ever need to do for the next 20 years. Could you in very brief terms lay out whether this is an interim strategy to kind of bridge off into some other long-term things we're going to have to talk about? And it's going to buy us some time to properly plan and do all of that kind of stuff. So what's the time frame here for this what I?m looking at as a short-term, interim space plan, but it is not the ultimate solution. We've got a lot of other things that we have to talk about and consider for the future.
>> and it goes to some of the latter part of the document as well as understanding that the Commissioner is correct. Debra hail and I took a very quick look at growth patterns for the criminal courts, and you certainly have the civil court side of the system as well that needs to be addressed. And what we see is that this plan gets you another step down the road. And that we would expect that as originally anticipated, you are going to sometime between 2012 and 2015 have built out at least 17 courts in the cjc tower. Now, it was designed for 16, but we think that you can get up to 18. And with the magistrate's smaller court, certainly you will be at 17. In addition to that, you have the civil courts that have had a looming need for a number of years that needs to be addressed, and what has also been considered in this document is where the gault building sit and the original plans contemplated at some point taking the gault building down and building to support the court system. At that point it was contemplated as the criminal court system, but there's no reason that we shouldn't be looking at the system as a whole, not civil, criminal, but because of the way that the heman courthouse, the cjc tower and the court building are situated that it's important to look at the system as a whole, particularly if you're contemplating a civil courts project that would be moving forward under a bond package in the '07 to 2010 time frame because you are going to be pushing up on the edge of when you're going to be running out of space for your criminal courts as well. So part of what this document, this exhibit that everyone signed also contemplated was that you would use $150,000 that you've already appropriated and already is in facilities budget to look at the court system as a whole and immediately begin that planning work that deals with what the needs of the civil courts are in conjunction with the criminal court, actually, the whole court system, so you would look at family law, whether you have some property acquisitions that you are contemplating that would be suitable for family law courts, that you look at the clerk functions and everything that goes with the support of the courts and design a project around what that need is.
>> do you have the ability to do that? Are you trained to do that? Are you the person that we ought to ask questions of or ask that you go out and say bring us back something that makes sense? Are you?
>> when it comes to projecting the needs of the court, it is a very specialized field. And in many cases the judges are much better suited to answer those questions, but also the national institute of state courts that has individuals that are skilled in planning for courts. So not entirely I could not do this. I could answer a lot of your questions, but I could not answer all of them.
>> this was built with the intent of 16 courts?
>> 16 to 18.
>> 16 to 18. And we presently have now -- we have 12 in it now and a visiting judge as well. And you've also received authorization for a 15th.
>> are we online with what projected when we built cjc.
>> yes.
>> but it sounds like we're needing to do a lot more retrofitting with what we're doing with the gault and -- moving things over there.
>> it was thought that you would retrofit, that you would not shelf space in the building, but use every inch of it, but with the understanding that you would be moving some tenants out and retrofitting for the courts. There are two schools of thought of how you would construct, and some jurisdictions they actually shelf space and all it is is wide open and there's no interior finish to it. You don't use it until you need it. In other places the space is at a premium of where we found ourselves in on project. The strategy was you would use it when you needed to retrofit the courts, which is where you find yourselves today.
>> if I may interrupt, Commissioner, I have looked at the population figures, and I?m real comfortable with the civil side and I?ll bet you I?m pretty close on the criminal side. In 35 years Austin is projected to be the size of present day san antonio, 1.3 plus million. That assumes that the traumatic growth that Austin experienced between 1990 and 2000, that we only grow at half that rate. If that happens then our need for a civil court, and I believe the same holds true for a criminal court, is about every five years, four to five years it clicks over that by population growth you will need a civil court, district court and a criminal court. And so if you just think about the life of the cjc, you're probably -- and I think judge perkins can speak on it, but you're probably growing about every four to five years the need for our criminal district court. And so as you build out -- and it looks like you've got another 10 years or more left if you do these -- if you do these renovations.
>> I guess, judge, the thing that frightens me is we all know that the population is going to continue to grow, and at some point in time as opposed to building more courtrooms or building -- retrofitting buildings or taking more space in that you take the space that you have and you make sure that you maximize what you have. Now, I talked to at least one judge that has asked me, why don't you do things in the evening. Why don't you do things when courts aren't used. I mean, when space isn't used. And we all know that that's probably a pretty tough question to answer other than the fact that a number of people say, well, I don't want to do that. Well, I think that the people --
>> well, I can answer it. If you don't mind us using your name on jury summons which asks the juries to come down after 6:00 o'clock and serve, because everything is predicated off that, and I don't know of a county in this country that asked the public to come in on jury service after five or 6:00 o'clock.
>> one thing also Commissioner that you have, and problem that you have in that is the amount of overtime that you're willing to pay. For one thing, if you just -- just speaking about the criminal side, if you take a defense lawyer, they will have to come to court in the morning, sometimes thil have to come in the afternoons. If in addition to that we're also going to tell them you come at night as well. You're talking about a who will group of staff members that you will have to have, have assistant da's there. I have, for instance, four to five assistant da's in my court. They have to be there everyday I call the docket because if defense lawyer a comes in and he's got a case with with the da that's not there, then nothing can be done on it.
>> and that's taking into consideration that you're talking about working a conventional day. What happens when you say your day is 11 -- right now it's 9:00. You find somebody -- I?m looking for ways, y'all -- you've heard me say in the last couple of weeks, all I have are people come to go me wanting more money to appropriate things that is just overwhelming. And yet still -- I would think that I would be able to tell the public, judge, do you know what? You may get summoned to be on a jury and it may be 7:00 o'clock at night or maybe you don't mind your tax rate being 62 cents. You tell me what you want it to be. It's just a matter of dollars as far as I?m concerned. And that's all we're -- that's what I?m looking at. And I would think that if you brought the average everyday joe -- and realize the average everyday joe doesn't know enough about how the system really works, but space is one of those things where you walk around that cjc building and then there is a lot of space and I know y'all work hard, but there are a lot of doors that are locked trying to get into a court at 2:30, 3:00. And I?m sure you read in the paper and know where Gerald is going with this. Maybe there great explanations for this, but I would like to get comfortable with that so that I can look somebody in the eye and say, do you know what, I think we're using our space the best way that we can. I do know that you're overwhelmed with cases, you can look at that thing and you go, by mad, you've got to put some more courts in existence. I?m just trying to find a place to -- if it's not under a tree, I?ve got to give you a building, apparently. I?m just looking for a roof to put the needs under.
>> Commissioner, I?ll be happy to meet with that any time you would like I would be happy for you to come over to the courthouse any time. I would be happy to go with you all morning, all day or all night if you want. We can run those figures out for you.
>> and Commissioner, obviously trying to be prudent with the public's money, there's nothing wrong with that. But by the same token, we're work wg a building that was constructed in 1930. I think the rule of thumb that's across in county buildings is that you generally build them for a 55-year lifetime. It's not exactly true that we're being extravagant in terms of building -- the number of courthouses. As far as I know in the history of Travis County, we've had one courthouse at fourth and guadalupe that was described as two courtrooms and a done john, and then we had one courthouse at 11th and congress, and this is our third courthouse. So it's not unusual in counties our size that we've been building a plethora of space. And I know the public is putting a great deal of pressure on you, but I also think that a good case has been made that this county has been prudent with respect to the way we've used budget and the way we've used bonds and that there is a substantial need because of this population explosive growth between 1990 and 2000, which appears to be going on unabated. On behalf of the judges I represent, if we don't get started on this, all thf is seven to 10 years -- of this is seven to 10 years effectively. By the time we plan, go to the voters, get the financing, the time we work with roger to get the detailed plans, and the way I?m looking right now, that judge that's supposed to be appointed by governor perry as of this day I had no courtroom for that judge to go into. Now, by February if things turn out right, we hope we will have a courtroom. But right after that within four to five years, I am behind the curve. And what judge perkins and the people with the cjc are telling you is that it's getting near curve time. And while I respect your opinions and I think they're worthy and I think all of us could stand to be -- make sure we're scrutinized that we're using the public's money well, the need is great right now Commissioner. And I understand you have nothing but a steady stream of people coming here, but I?m telling you as earnestly as I can, the need for every one of these departments, because we're being driven by population is great and it's getting greater and it's not abating. And we'd appreciate your help.
>> is there any escalation with costs associated -- even with this growth, but I guess the rule of thumb -- and I think I?m still correct on it. The rule of thumb, is it still accurate to say that for every courtroom that we create to staff it and everything like that is about a million dollars?
>> the needs of the courts are slightly different because of the criminal area and then it's slightly less in civil.
>> has that amount of money been increasing? Is it pretty much stationary as far as we're concerned? I?m kind of concerned and I need to see if anybody can give me an answer on that.
>> I?ll give you a flippant answer, Commissioner, but it's serious. I don't know of anything that's declining these days in terms of price, whether it's staff or whatever. It's going by some amount. If you're asking specifically what it's growing by, I think we could study in terms of the cost of the raises that we've had over a period of time, but nothing is declining that I know of.
>> so that is the figure?
>> for criminal, less for civil.
>> I think the public should hear that. That's why I put it out. It is expensive and we do have to deal with growth, and I think the court -- the court itself, the system itself, it's a serious matter and it's an expensive matter, however I think by planning appropriately like we have done since I?ve been here and I?ve been quite sure it happened before I got here. I?m really concerned about we're still moving in the right direction where we can accommodate growth, and how we get there and I think what we're looking at now. And in my opinion it's a very innovative way of getting courtrooms, moving folks around, having two additional courtrooms, at least space for two, with some of the movements we're making. And I think it's very innovative that we're heading in that direction. And probably at the least amount of cost than maybe projected for doing the thing right from scratch. So I?m kind of concerned about that. Right now I guess I?m wanting to hear in my opinion -- I haven't heard from the sheriff, per se, but who is a big part of all of this. Is there anyone as far as elected officials who is objecting to what we're doing now as far as the domino effect of trying to get the two courtrooms in place in the cjc and making the movement that we need to make to accommodate those things. That's what I?m trying to put my arms around.
>> there is a signature page of the elected officials attached to the comibt.
>> I don't have that. That's why I posed the question. I don't know who said what and what. I don't have that.
>> it's signed by the district attorney, the district clerk, the sheriff, judge perkins, judge dietz, myself and roger. So basically the elements that I?ve been outlining for you is an agreement that these individuals reached as as an appropriate road map to present to the Commissioners court for how to proceed with accommodations in the cjc complex. And in addition to that,, included, the consideration that you look for -- and again, there may be some issues with the money the way the money is $150,000 is actually appropriated at this time, and that is allocated to look at the new civil -- it's actually very specifically worded that it be architectural on engineering cost services for a new civil courthouse. The group is asking that you broaden the scope of that, look at the system as a whole, look at appropriate siting options, including the redevelopment of the gault building site for the court tower, potential acquisitions of properties downtown, reuse of the hammond site courthouse so you would know who is going in that building and how it is to be used in conjunction with this whole plan and development of a family law center in conjunction with the gardner-betts side. So you would look at your system as a whole and you would decide the highest and best use of each of your site with the time frame around what those uses are and that you move forward right away to do that. And as judge dietz indicated, in preparation for trying to be prepared to roll out a bond program. I have one brief comment that goes back to what Commissioner Daugherty was asking. That is to say more than the the -- I talked to particularly the criminal courts on this idea of how to maximize use of their space. It is apparent that when we have specialty courts as in drug court or or moj straight, we are -- magistrate, we are using after hour uses for special courts, which is in line with what other jurisdictions are doing, that we haven't found a jurisdiction that actually has a regular docket that's occurring in the evening hours. So we can keep looking into that, but it's more of the specialty type of court environment that are after hours functions and we're currently doing that and we're proposing to continue doing that.
>> I think it's extraordinarily impressive that we have got so many folks whokd have walked away from the table so many different times. I almost don't even want to see judge dietz because it's like finally I want to be able to say to you, it is time. We have cleared the plate of a lot of other projects, we're still doing more clearing and if we can get the sheriff to go to another unnamed site that we're working on, but it is time, and I think some other folks who are not here today, we've been talking about the needs of the civil district and criminal district, but we have the county courts at law as well. And if judge phillips and judge crane were here, we had to turn down a request to go to the legislature this last time on county courts because we flat out didn't have anywhere to stash them. We could stash our new criminal district court in criminal district, but we don't have anyplace to put county courts at law. I think we've been creative in terms of trying to speez scwooez out space, in terms of our masters in the use of some of our courts down at gardner-betts, drug court after hours. And for the district attorney, I think the county auditor will be able to say, to get all of your people on one floor in terms of have to be more effective and more efficient, it made all the difference in the world to get those people out of three separate suites on two different floors into one contiguous space in this building on the second floor and to give them the security they needed on one floor to be able to control their entrance and the da has that. So I think you would see efficiencies if you all were able to get on one particular floor. What's also been left out of here is our former county attorney didn't see a need to put his criminal c-14-'s staff -- county attorney's staff in the mix. So today as I?m headed out to the cjc there's all of the attorneys with their little wheeled carts bringing all these papers and all these carts of materials going between this building and the cjc, which is really a, inappropriate, b, the weather is crazy in terms of having paper stuff going between buildings in the weather, but also obviously the security in terms of our prosecutors going from one building to another building. And I think it's inappropriate. I think we can talk about getting darn creative on our justices of peace.
>> we got another signature.
>> two more signatures.
>> we did broach the question. It's something that we want to -- [ inaudible ].
>> we did raise the question. It is something that we want to wrap into the mix of planning for the entire complex, but was not something to do, particular as this plan really was viewed, particularly at the request of judge dietz, that it be not more than four to five-year window of how to use this space. And that's why you will see some of the spaces utilized by folks that when the need arises you can move out into leased space if you need to. Which has always been the way you've planned to work with intention of this building. What we'd like to do is pull the system back together and plan that whole block or multiple blocks, including looking at this building again, if we need to, but particularly the heman sweatt courthouse, the cjc site as a whole system, so that you don't have things happen like the county attorneys.
>> since I have a number of folks here who signed this painful, let me make sure I understand what y'all are signing. You signed this thing with the intent of basically presiding over 150,000 dollars' worth of spending, and you all -- this would be the panel that would decide how the $150,000 is spent, or is this just an opinion or this is y'all's signoff on taking that $150,000 and turning this into a plan. Maybe I?m missing something here.
>> the 150,000, I believe it was about 15 months ago in the previous years' budget cycle that we came and spoke on behalf of facilities about the need to start planning for the civil courthouse. And somehow -- I?m not sure what the parlance is, but christian could educate me, but that did not get spent. And then it's been in -- christian, what do you call it? Limbo. [ laughter ]
>> limbo land.
>> it's been suspended until now. And the suggestion is that we take the 150 now, sort of broaden the scope beyond just a civil courthouse, but take a look at the civil courthouse and the possibility of family courts and also look at the other needs of the other departments that would go into a proposed structure and to detail I would rather imagine square footage and that type of drill down and what are the requirements that we actually need. I don't think it addresses necessarily the criminal courts. I want to be clear about that.
>> #- 50,000 -- $150,000, what we need to do is put an agenda item on that basically allows us to discuss the scope of work for an appropriate r.f.p. Which is fine. I think when we rebudget the $150,000, our intention was to go ahead and get that work done. So I don't know if there's any problem here with us putting a small committee together maybe to work on recommended language for an r.f.p., get that back before the court, and we find a consultant to do the work. What you seem to be saying today, though, is that the scope should be a whole lot broader than maybe we thought a year and a half ago. And that's fine with me. But at some point we need to see specific wording and move on it. And I think -- the way you get that done is basically put it on the agenda, but it would help us to see a draft scope of work on the r.f.p.
>> I would be remiss if I didn't recognize randy rowry, who is president of the Austin bar association, because they've made this I believe one of their top priorities and probably randy can say it better than i.
>> I?m randy howry, and I?m president of the Austin bar. I think I?ve met most of you individually to talk about this topic. I do represent all the lawyers of Austin, at least those that are members of the Austin bar, and that's about 4,000 lawyers. It is as judge dietz indicated, the project of priority for the Austin bar to help get something done with respect to the civil courthouse and perhaps it wraps into this overrule program. -- overall program. To illustrate that, not only am I here to speak with judge dietz on this issue, but joe anne merica will be president of the Austin bar in two years. We're trying to get all of those next in line of succession as president of the bar to let you folks know that this is an important project for us. We want to partner with you to get this project accomplished. I think I so indicated in our meetings together. And to whatever extent we can -- I know two weeks ago I toured with judge dietz the current courthouse, the heman sweett courthouse. And every nook and cranny of that space is being used. It is crowded, people are standing in the hallways. So it's our belief and it's the belief of the lawyers that I?m talking to about this that we need to do something. So we want to work with you and that's what I?m here to illustrate and answer any questions you have.
>> randy, you're right, we had lunch and I don't have a problem if we want to build a courthouse. That's what I thought we were talking about we need to do a new courthouse. I mean, the one is older than dirt, as the judge has said. That's fine. This deal for me is more of a, what do you do with gault? How do you move these people here? Do you really move the sheriff over there? I mean, there are a lot of movements here that if we sign off on some of these things -- and last week I asked how much space do we lease as a county in Travis County, and as opposed to moving somewhere, you know, the sheriff where we may move them in the event that we do something like that, might we be better off moving 13 departments that we have that we pay rebt into that building and not move the sheriff in there. I think the energy has been recognized for a long time between the lawyers and the judges that a courthouse -- I mean, that's not my concern here, the courthouse. There are all of these movements of people and how we get this little courtroom open. And how can we get this courtroom open. Maybe the answer to that is hey, get behind the building of the major courthouse and maybe you will solve that problem. And so I?m still object vusly as you can -- obviously as you can see, trying to connect the dots so when I raise my hand I know what I?m raising my hand over. I clearly raised my hand to appropriate the $150,000 for the sign phase and for what we're trying to do with determining what we need to do, but -- I hope that explains to you, randy, going I thought Gerald was wired into this thing and he's asking a lot of questions that's driving a lot of other questions to be asked.
>> Commissioner, I believe it was September of 2001 was when the court adopted the master plan, the most recent version of that.
>> January 2002.
>> January 2002. I stant corrected by -- I stand corrected by four months. That master plan in general provided for the construction of a -- I?m going to call it a general government campus, which was foreseen to move from the central business district some of the core governmental functions, but reserve in general to the central business district the court functions. I may have overstated or rather simplified. Now, we've taken some steps, but in terms of taking that big affirmative step to make either the general government campus or the court campus a reality, I think what -- at least what I?m saying and I think what randy is saying is we think it's time to take that big step. And there are a lot of pressures, and I?m probably responsible for some that the state is going to try to wres sell with, but we need to take a big step here. And we see the planning dollars as -- and I think the judge's suggestion is correct. We need to drill down the scope and come back to y'all, but we really do need to get started on that plan and get started.
>> and in terms of the idea about the sheriff's functions, certain parts of the sheriff's functions moving out of that particular facility, from county owned space into what is talked about as being county owned space, it is the same strategy that we worked with with ms. Spears and with dana about what needs to be downtown and what does not. And this is absolutely consistent with that. And quite frankly, would be a good co-tenant on some other things that we've often made some decisions on. But this is to buy us some time. It is also to give us some flexibility about what is the footprint that we would talk about for any kind of a courts complex. Does it go on gault? Does it go in the woodman c. Plaza area. Does it go on some other unidentified something? Can we identify other issues related to capital views that would make land that we have right now more usable than it is right now. Is there some other something that we just haven't talked about? And I?m not locking in on anything other than having the maximum flexibility to get the folk who want to get going on this to get going and have the good talks when I am convinced that the move of the sheriff's office, decentralize functions in the same way we moved things to west command and east command. This is a good move for them, while keeping the substantial courts-related things downtown. And in the same way that they are stuck on three different floors in that one building, we can get them to one floor and a more efficient use of their space and to kind of solve some of the -- without too specific, some of the security concerns that have been brought forward to us on how to access their space in a much more secure manner. I?ll leave it at that?
>> Commissioners, I wanted to address my remarks on the whole proposal. I support, especially the cjc, I think it's mostly good that I have communicated to many of you many times that we have had water problems, water reeks leaks, water damage in every inch of that office in the cjc has been affected by water damage. We replaced carpet, we replaced desks and not to mention the concern that I have for the health of my employees. And we've had to endure a lot of problems in the cjc. This propose would address, and we anticipate finding a permanent solution to the problems that we have had, even the last couple of weeks we continue to have water leaks in that office. So I support and ask for your support for this whole concept and space allocation. The other thing is of course I?m very much in support of a new civil courthouse, and that to address judge Daugherty, we do currently have one evening --
>> Commissioner. Don't promote him yet. [ laughter ]
>> what did I say?
>> we do have an evening court once a month. My staff goes, and I think it just deals with family issues. I can't tell you how many cases they solve, but I do have some staff that is -- and it's outside of the courthouse complex that I?m aware of. So currently there is only one that we know, it's only once a month. And I think that they schedule that way in advance to be able to have people come to -- and handle their cases there. But I just want to say I?d like to really ask you to support this only because we will find the permanent solution to my office. I don't want to move. If we have to, we will, but I think we need to address that. And like I said, it's been no secret. I think my first memo was in January of 2001 when I started sending out memos about the problems we've had in the county clerk. We are in 2005, so for the last four years.
>> Commissioner, judge, on behalf of the sheriff's office, just to kind of echo some of the statements you've made and probably echo some of district attorney earle. I think our perspective is more on customer service. There are benefits of having some of our administrative offices down here. Unfortunately what we see as the large picture is that the needs of others out weigh those of ours. And to create a more efficient government system for the consumer, we're certainly willing to relocate. And I?ve been here 20 years. We've relocated five times , and we'll keep doing that as long as we're meeting the needs. For us it's a little bit different situation. We are decentralized and that works better for us than it may for some offices. We're certainly well versed in running a 24/7 operations. In some cases that benefits us for the consumer out there. But properties, we have discussed with some, certainly we've looked at some issues, I think we've ameanable to it. We understand there's some give and take. We do have some staff that support more closely the court system and the consumers being the attorneys downtown and we try to articulate in the memo and our signature and endorsement of that, but leaving them in the downtown complex again would benefit those consumers moving to another location as we found with east and west command and have some other benefits. We have seen great benefit of certainly having the sheriff's office in different neighborhoods. We continue to have neighborhood resource centers in small community. We see the benefit of that, so we are certainly able to be a good neighbor as mr. Earle has said and taken in the big picture.
>> I need to reiterate the savings, the offsets, looking at the lease space. For example, drug court, if it moves over to the drug building, the sheriff leaving, the other lease space opportunities that exist out there, what will the cost -- what will the overall savings be? Now that the public integrity unit may not be able to generate the revenue that we anticipated, then that's another factor that may need to be considered; however, there has to be some offsets that will of course save the taxpayers money and get the service that I think the taxpayers and the citizens of Travis County deserve, and that is an adequate courthouse system functioning and operating. And I think what we're doing here is an innovative thing, but I think it hits the bull's eye on a lot of things that we're trying to accomplish here. And I really haven't heard an elected official as of yet disagree with what we have here on the table before the court today. And so I?m really looking forward. To maybe making some of these things work. And after the day is done, look at these offsets and see how much revenue, how much money you actually will be saving in the long run by doing some things as we're doing. And that's getting rid of a lot of lease space. So I?m kind of looking forward to see where we're going to go with this, judge.
>> is the gault building technically part of the criminal justice so that building is actually part of that? I know that it sits right next to it, but whenever you hear the blackwell-thurman --
>> it's connected on the third floor. I want to make sure I back up and articulate so that you clearly understand how the civil courts' project got attached to this gault building discussion. And that is that as judge dietz pointed out, the strategic plan adopted in January of 2002 anticipated that you would move forward with a civil courts program that contemplated putting that building on the university savings site. That building is much more restricted by the capitol view corridor than our studies from 1998 reflected a and and roger found that out early on. Remember, judge dietz came and asked if you were interested in moving forward with variance request from the legislature. Once that site is either removed from the mix or not, the question becomes, do you look at redevelopment of the gault building site earlier than you might have otherwise anticipated it and put another court tower there? And that is obviously something that's worthy of investigation. That's also how it ties together. The reason that you need to look at the needs of the criminal site as well, because if you do that you want to make sure that you've balanced what that program is and that you're constructing to create a site that serves everything that you need it to. So that's how the discussion in this document branched out and actually we asked judge dietz to come in and talk with us about how we were making a proposal for the reallocation of the gault building site space as it stands right now. He asked that we look at it in a four to five-year time frame and why their elected officials supported the idea that we look at the system as a whole at least in this initial plan. You need disooid what you're going to build as you determine what the needs are and it may very well be that the next piece that goes on the ground has to be and should be a civil courts piece of this, but you don't do that without contemplating the needs of a system as a whole, particularly because of what you're siting restrictions might be. The other thing that we ran into was because the money -- the $550,000 -- $150,000 was originally earmarked as allocated reserve. In the 2002 budget it was restricted to co. Because it was a study, it was very specifically designed in the official statement for the os for the certificate of obligation, and it certainly says it's for architectural and engineering services for a new civil courthouse. So we need to know that, one, you endorse the concept of looking at the system as a whole and two you direct pbo to work with the county attorney's office and the auditor to find an appropriate $150,000 to spend because you may need to reallocate that co money towards something else that's in the os document that can be funded with it. So that was our particular reason for blig that forward and how these issues got tied together. It's simply because the original site contemplated had some pretty restrictive issues with it.
>> but is it enough to say today that we will have identified a source of funding by the time we take action on an appropriate r.f.p.?
>> certainly.
>> you need this a week from now or two weeks? If there are a lot of interested parties, my thought is a working committee or subcommittee would be appropriate. Get all the input necessary. But I think it's a big deal. I never seriously considered the gault building for the civil courts building. My aim was to try to figure out a strategy to try to go to the legislature and get an appropriate waiver or get turned down. But while we're putting that strategy together, it may make sense to try to identify other site options. It may well be that as a last resort we go there because when we go there, we create other problems, don't we? If we move the da there, then the da has to find someplace to go and I assume ronnie's position will be the same. I?m happy to move, but I want all my people to stay together. So it may be that the legislature says no waiver, and when I heard that I was kind of surprised, but not surprised because what I did not know is that capitol view core ber from mopac is right -- corridor from mopac is right over the cjc building. That's why it's not as tall.
>> I?m not trying to get us off center because in this last legislative session, I did with y'all's approval I did get turned down on --
>> we were told that we came too late in the process. So what I?m hoping is that if we run the traps before the legislature gets to town and we start early, then we see ourselves getting nowhere, that's still pretty early in the process. Then we formally take it off the table. Right now there seems to be more problematic than it was before the legislature gave us that information.
>>
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>>
>> ..from that particular location. Now, what's being said is if the westgate tower ever were to collapse it would not be able to be rebuilt to its current stature, but I?m not really counting on that, so I think it may be a lot easier to go with removing a capitol view corridor on a capitol view corridor that doesn't exist anymore, versus a really controversial one from one of the historic downtown parks next door to the Austin history center, around the corner from the hirsch field building, real close to the governor's mansion --
>> you are a fountain of knowledge.
>> you have no idea what crap is in this head.
>> I repeat -- look at all of the option, we will identify an appropriate source of funding by the time it gets back. How is that?
>> sounds great to me, judge.
>> what I?m hearing from those that signed this letter was this, is this. The sheriff is willing to move, he wants to move everybody, he wants a little space in the gault building.
>> any downtown location adjacent to the court.
>> we need to work with the sheriff, get the sheriff satisfied with the understanding that they will move out of the gault building in toto if appropriate all tenant space located.
>> for those individuals we have identified.
>> ronnie is saying he will move from the third floor into the gault, he wants everybody to move, a second floor hallway of some sort, goes into the cjc.
>> want a connecting way to get from --
>> the second floor of the cjc tower to the third floor of the gault building.
>> [indiscernible]
>> along with the public [indiscernible]
>> well, my position on the public integrity unit is if the state is unwilling to partner with us to pay for space in the county building, we leave them in privately owned space where they pay.
>> like the frost tank -- like the frost building, $100 a foot.
>> I say that not, you know, I say that not to be selfish, but I think we have got enough space needs ourselves to -- to use county resources to take care of the county space needs. But if we can accommodate the state in this process and get reimbursed, I?m not looking for a profit, but I think we ought to get reimbursed. Otherwise I think we ought to dedicate that space to an appropriate county use.
>> well, I think we have some room to talk about this. We may need to enlist the service --
>> save a little money while we are doing it. Seems to me that it may be able to sweeten it for them. Save money all at the same time. Plus offset some of the costs that we incur by moving that special state unit into the county-owned space.
>> I think we would all be in favor of that sweetness, your honor.
>> right.
>> and the -- so in the cjc, though, we are looking at creating additional courtrooms.
>> that's correct.
>> which we have to have theoretically by 1/1/07, when the new court comes online. Theoretically that would be the target date. We have that space in the jail that we were talking about that we can still use as a backup courtroom for a while. But nobody likes that room, that courtroom. It's because a problem to get to for the public, it's hard to get prisoners to and from there. It's very difficult to run a major docket from that small courtroom. What we have been using primarily for up until now has been jury trials where you have got one defendant going over there and that's it. So it's hard to run a rocket docket or missile docket when you have got 20 or 30 prisoners coming in. There's just no place to put them over there. So it's a real problem. We would use that temporarily until we could get a courtroom built. January 1st until 7 is when the new scril district court will start -- criminal district court will start up. Really our target date. They have explained to me we probably can't get the courtroom built by then, but we will try to, as close as we can get to that date we will get to that. We also need more room for the court administration, deborah hale's office.
>> well, I?m hearing a lot of commitments, but most of them have conditions. At the same time, though, we have been asked to vote on a major investment of dollars to acquire addition of space at another location.
>> right.
>> when will we know whether conditions have been met? [indiscernible] saying I want to move, I can move 85% hypothetically speaking. But I need my 15% covered down here, right?
>> correct.
>> when will we know whether the 15% in fact will be covered down here somewhere.
>> well, I mean, I think that you are talking about continuing with the offices that you all presently have in the jail, that sort of a thing; is that correct.
>> what we have, judge, the majority of that space is with central warrants. Those warrants are hard paper washington that are service -- warrants that are service by attorneys and individuals in the court system. And an option would be we could leave them just where they are sitting. I?m not really, you know, involved in the exactly how a new tenant for the building would want it laid out, whether any issues would change there. If we can leave them where they are at, no additional costs on our end. The other are literally less than a dozen individuals that we would be pretty amenable to relocating within that. They are individuals that have close proximity as Commissioner Sonleitner pointed out. Paper intensive site here, trying to avoid having people carting it not literally from stokes -- from granger over there, but from a farther distant location, putting them in a car, transporting them multiple times a day.
>> I think, judge Biscoe, that yes these are conditions reached as the allocation of space proposed. It was also the beginning of an assessment for roger of what the needs are, what he had to plan for in getting dollars to you for what the renovation costs would be for reallocating this space versus the other. The first thing that I would go back to say is that this is something that planning and budget and -- through the space planning committee would have been bringing forward at some point during the course of this fiscal year, a proposal to relocate the sheriff's office. Now, whether you acquire a property or whether you put them in lease space, it is something that -- that is -- it's time to mull that trigger to move -- pull that trigger to move someone out of this complex to make space for the things that feed to be in the complex. So it is complicated by the property acquisition, but I do have a pay-back analysis to show you that contempt plates some assumptions that we will see in executive session that I think will help you understand that a little bit better. But it also helped -- these conditions, these needs parameters helped roger put numbers to how what the reuse cost of the space would be. If -- if -- in looking at how we were going to allocate the particular space, which is part of the process we generally go through anyway. In this instance you asked us to bring back a commitment from the impacted departments for our reallocation plan, signed off saying that they would agree to the allocations. So this is the agreement that we brought back.
>> brought back the document with signatures. What's clear is that those signatures have conditions.
>> yes, that are outlined. If the sheriff's condition has been addressed, the question is has it been addressed to the satisfaction of the sheriff? To the extent that we know exactly what part of the sheriff's office will move out and where the other part will go, whether it will stay where they are right now? I guess it depends on how much space the less than a dozen will need and what that does to the da's needs. Whether the remaining space is sufficient.
>> judge, [indiscernible] has a 16,000 square feet, the third floor has 16, the second has 16, the first floor has 8,000 square feet. I believe most of the sheriff if they are going to stay are mainly at the cic area, central booking area. On this -- on the gault building only. How many of those people are going to stay at the gault, do you know?
>> again, what we have -- focusing with our central warrants division, that's a 24/7 operation, so we have certainly some efficiencies of running that operation there. You know, so I have to be careful when I tell you grand total of staff who are there. Because we spread them out. But again as the document that you have before you outlines, we have the segis group currently located on the second floor, and I have, you know, along with the central booking liaison. A discussion that we have had, involved in, we have not gotten to the stage of determining exactly where the sheriff's office individuals would land. Whether that would be where they currently are or whether that would be somewhere else in the proximity. What complicates it for us, if we have two systems, that means the county has invested dollars in the transfer of some of this paperwork that has to get from point a to point b. We don't -- we can't lose that ability so if they stay where they are at, then that problem gets solved real quickly. But I don't know if that solution works for a prospective new tenant. We have not been party to any, having gone that far in it. I think the sheriff's agreement to this is a conceptual stage that we are willing to do it, here are some need that we see would need to stay in the downtown proximity to the courts, the rest of the sheriff's office is willing to relocate.
>> when this all started was actually a request from the Commissioners court. If we look at acquiring building x, who would be the tenant? What we have got is a signoff by a very large tenant that would use most of that space, not all of it, but most of that space, saying we are amenable, it would work for us, count us in. And the secondary question that Commissioners court asked was, okay, let's presume that happens, then who would backfill gault and what we have got here are the other moving parts of other people who have defined space need for the interim and long term of how we would backfill all of that. Then as that becomes unbackfilled from someplace else, who gets slotted into that? So there are multiple parts here moving from the needs, in the meantime the potential of an acquisition at the other end, all of these things are actually coming back together again in terms of -- of do we have a tenant for -- for building x. Yes. Is there backfilling all the way back, do we have signoff by everybody who would be involved in any move at this point? And the answer is yes. I feel certain that whatever needs of the sheriff, that are going to stay downtown, will absolutely be accommodated and we will have to figure out what works best. And take into consideration costs, but we are not talking about 85% of the sheriff's office having to be accommodated. It is the remainder --
>> 99?
>> I -- [laughter]
>> if you look --
>> percent of the total agency, yes. Looking at one percent.
>> it's a very small number of people [multiple voices]
>> the sign offwas not an academic question. It came from real experience after we spent more than $6 million, still have not completed that project. Because we have fought, we have fought, we have discussed, we have deliberated, we have done a whole lot of other things, both good and bad to fill the building. After we acquired it. After we renovated it and if nothing else, we ought to address those issues up front this time. So that's why today when you hear these conditions, I?m not saying the conditions are unrealistic. I?m saying the pieces of the puzzle aren't together until we address these conditions. To me it's that simple.
>> judge, I would also like to point out that under the plan we are talking about, as soon as we do get some courtroom built, you know, for the master, then we would be able to pull out of that jail courtroom, you know, so all of that space which is basically the sheriff's space that automatically becomes available, jury room, courtroom, holding cell that there is and, you know, so that is -- some good amount.
>> okay.
>> anything else today that absolutely must be said, this is the time.
>> nope.
>> other than the direction that you have already given by the r.f.p., I don't think so. We have part b to [multiple voices]
>> something related to the strategy that has been signed off here judge or is that something to come back -- because they have signed off on --
>> we have an executive session discussion today we need to have that. On the civil courts building r.f.p. I mean as soon as possible is fine with me. And if we get some indication that it's coming back, we will go ahead and identify an appropriate source of funding.
>> judge, what do you expect -- when do you expect to have those conditions that you have been hammering out? Which I think are very -- I couldn't have said it any more eloquently. I think as far as staff is concerned, when can we address the conditional things that the judge has brought up. If we are coming back in two weeks, that means to me that we will have some answers to some of those questions. So -- so in other words I don't want to come back and then we still got some things that are still missing in the public, based on conditions as far as what we are doing.
>> it would be my understanding would be when roger is able to -- has your authorization, to begin preparing plans for -- for the construction or retrofit of the space. That's how these conditions are addressed.
>> depending on whether we pulled a trigger related to a purchase of something that we could get to in executive session.
>> more simply a relocation.
>> [indiscernible] tell us in two days. Here galt building, here's what I need to see in the gault building or right next to it and here's the space they need.
>> we have provided that information to p.b.o. And to facilities management and that was part of the early stage.
>> [indiscernible] really as far as you are concerned the sheriff.
>> well, I mean, again we have identified these are needs that we see whereas if we moved the entire sheriff's office, we would have some huge inefficiencies created by doing that, we would consider that a wise move. Not only for us again but for our end consumer out there. We have put that forward. Again, now I?ve not seen what roger may have done on -- well, these people just silt where they are currently at or do they move somewhere else, is it a domino effect of once the court relocates out of the jail space, we can reutilize that space. We have not gotten to that detail yet on it. So I think that our overall commitment still stands. We have supplied the did it take on square footage, the -- datas on square footage, the individuals have done tours of it, we should have a good understanding of who the individuals are who say what square footage they currently occupy, what tasks they do, how that is an integral part of the downtown court system.
>> okay.
>> the five sections identified in this backup are not in the gault building. Only part of them are.
>> the ones that are identified in the memo that you have are in the gault building.
>> that's exhibit 1.
>> I don't have the document in front of me.
>> e 1. Bonding and courthouse security actually in the cjc tower, we are not proposing to touch them except for the fact that the sheriff's office did mention --
>> that's my point. Bonding and courthouse security is not in the gault building.
>> no, they are not in the gault building, on the first floor of tower.
>> how much of this is in the gault building, how much space do you need in the gault building? We are not tampering with the sheriff in the cjc.
>> that's what we wanted to make clear was noted. We weren't tampering with the sheriff in the cjc, then to note central warrants, one person, tdcpia, actually located in the gault building that need to have a home somewhere in the comb plex, it's up to the actual design that roger will be working with the sheriff on whether or not they move from the space they are currently in or they stay there and consolidate in some fashion all of these units into that area. That's left up to that actual allocation on the footprint itself. We have not gotten that far. We have identified what the units are and we know where they are located.
>> roger can't share with us his idea about whether that footprint would be the old --
>> he's been trying to do that, get in there.
>> roger has been known to be secretive. Seems to me we just need to know if the sheriff needs x amount of space for these folks, the only place we can put them is in the gault building. Whether there is another building we can put them in like the cjc, if they are out of the galt building altogether, when we deal with the d.a., we have all of the gault building at our disposal, right?
>> yes. Depends on -- because not all of the gault building because the first floor, we propose to bring the [indiscernible] not the da function.
>> we move the da down there first, that's what you all told me earlier today. Then if there is room we move the [indiscernible], court. Then the special public integrity unit. In that order.
>> right.
>> so not that we necessarily give the d.a. All of the space, but we take care of the d.a.'s needs in the gault building, then we know whether there is space, look at the drug court. Move them from rental space. I don't know that I ever thought about moving the sheriffs from this location into the lease space. That's counter to what our strategy has been during the last couple or three years.
>> that's correct. We will see some information in executive session that supports that. If we can get there. But I did think that it was important to note that you are at the point where someone needed to vacate the building. So the alternatives are to acquire a site or to put them in lease space and the tenant that's been selected by this group to vacate are those functions of the sheriff's office that are not listed on this sheet that are currently located in the gault building. I do think, though, if you could vote, if you vote to use this road map, if you will, that everyone has signed off on as a way to move forward with the next step of allocating the space, it does specifically outline as you addressed earlier that you are going to address some of the needs within the building, that you are then going to look at drug court moving in on lease space, then look at other people moving in on the lease space. It gives us an idea of about how to go about fitting the puzzle pieces together. That's what this document was intended to try to put before you.
>> what if we simply direct that we proceed with the implementation of this strategy by providing the court more specifics. I would feel a whole lot better doing that. I don't have any problem with this. We seem to be headed in the right direction. But we ought to know specifically how the conditions will be met and whether the persons who insists on the conditions or the author of the consists is satisfied. In the meantime I realize that we don't have forever to make a decision on this other property that we are looking at. We need to go ahead and make a decision on it one way or the other. I mean I just think this concept is fine with me. And I would feel a whole lot better if we would know specifically how each department would be treated.
>> just if I make a comment, facility management trying to minimize any costs to the renovation, some of the renovation, if that concept were presented to you today, accepted, that some of the function is going to be done in house to save some money. Also some of the functions that if we moved the public integrity unit, there's things about it, not only consolidation, if they moved to the second floor in the gault, they have minimum renovation, only a couple of rooms has to be renovated on the second floor. This is a positive in the cost of minimizing renovation. The drug court bringing more savings to the county, [indiscernible], the first floor, this would be good location because of the [indiscernible] of the district I mean of the administration court for the criminal judges, that the drug court belongs to them I guess in a way. So all of them are going to be on the first floor, plus a little bit, expansion on the first floor to the court administration [indiscernible] so this is really will fit together in the way that, you know, it's a going to be going on a domino effect he should say, because we can't do anything until we get building x renovated. Then get the sheriff moved over there. Then it's going to take a little time. After the sheriff move to the place, then we have to do concurrently the design of the third floor and the second floor and the first floor so we can start doing the domino effect on that. Just for information that we are going to have -- judge to be at 1-1-07, I don't think realistically I can have the courtroom that the approved by 1-1-07. There's no way. What it is, if we move forward with the concept and the schedule I think it's something I tried to get all of the elements working -- broken down, logistically, planned concurrently or sequential design, the court, the cjc, the third floor will be completed by the summer of 2007.
>> do you have the mathematic calculations, square footages stuff like that.
>> that's correct.
>> do you have like on the gault building floor 1 what the square footage is right now, who would most likely end up there, how much they would use. You have that already?
>> I have for the third floor, the second floor. The first floor I don't have because some of the sheriff units we need to talk about that on the sheriff floor, on the first floor of the gault. But I have the rest of them, yes.
>> you have there how much the d.a. Would need to accommodate -- how much the drug court would need, whether you have that square footage there.
>> that's correct.
>> you have all of in a sniff the existing, yes. The existing what they have right now, the lease facility and I [indiscernible] how many they have, we know how much square footage they will need at the gault first floor.
>> the new criminal district court, is that going in what I know as judge coronados court on the top.
>> we assume that it is.
>> the reality is that we will have that room ready to go by 1-1-07. The question is where does magistrate go.
>> that's correct.
>> to me is an internal problem, we are going to get there and figure it out. We are going to be ready with the courtroom because it's ready today. We are not having to wait until then oh, my goodness is the criminal district courtroom going to be ready. It's ready today. We have stacking issues related to has that happen, somebody has to get moved out of there, that's what we need to get worked out between now and then, quite frankly we will. Time is a wasting and the sooner question get there the better.
>> let me see the sketches that may satisfy my needs if the elected officials will sign-off on it.
>> I will send it to your office, judge.
>> anything else today that is real critical, must be said.
>> on a?
>> oa or b or -- if let's been said already, assume that we remember it.
>> thank you.
>> anything else?
>> thank you, judge.
>> judge.
>> one more thing about the civil court. We talked about out of queue for the feasibility or study for the planning, civil court 150,000. We need a little time to work it out, work out of out of queues permission to put it on street so we can have professional architects on time. Couple of weeks to get the rfq, that's going to be on the street for 21 days to a month. At that time we will have -- does take work for you? You mentioned a week, I cannot make it in a week.
>> I think the judges need to be involved. If the defense bar is entered, they indicated they may help with the funding, I would get them involved. Whoever is interested in working on this, helping out. The more people, the more time it will take, right?
>> at least for review.
>> what I?m saying it cannot take one week.
>> I agree.
>> some time, the rfq, put on the street and start getting some engineer architect on board. That's going to work actually was just [indiscernible] from that, get things done on that issue [multiple voices]
>> if I said one week I misspoke. Whenever it's ready bring it back. Don't dillydally, but spend the time necessary to do a good job.
>> judge, Biscoe, if -- if b part of this could be -- if you would -- this really is -- an attempt to -- to wrap your general government campus into your discussions on your property acquisitions, it may be more appropriate to discuss it in executive session with that item. So unless you have specific questions, about the --
>> that's what I had in mind in view of the time and our energy, we may have to have this back on next week on b. There are three or four sentences I think are important to be said after that. No matter how we discuss b, I don't know that it changes much. I will announce it for executive session today. How is that.
>> that would be great, thank you.
>> thanks, guys.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, December 13, 2005 3:38 PM