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The case for a new Santa Rosa courthouse

October 6, 2014
/ Shannon Nickinson
/ government

Santa Rosa voters first had the chance to fund construction of a new courthouse in 2002. That measure failed, but the need to replace the aging, inadequate facility in downtown Milton has only grown in the intervening 12 years. And if it fails again on Nov. 4, the county will continue to pour good money after bad to shore up the existing building, while preparing to take its case for a new courthouse to voters again in 2016. “I just don’t think there’s any rational thought that we don’t need another courthouse,” said County Administrator Hunter Walker. “God, we needed a courthouse in 2002 when we did it. I don’t think that’s a concern. The one thing we’ve boiled it down to is where.” And how to pay for it. In addition to approving the sales tax, voters will be asked to chose which of three potential sites they favor — the Pea Ridge site on U.S. 90 near Avalon Boulevard; a site in East Milton for which the land is donated, but an access road and other infrastructure will have to be built, or a parcel behind the current courthouse, which is in the floodplain and already lacks adequate parking. The cost estimates range from $49.7 million for the least expensive option, to $50.7 million, the most expensive option. In 2002, the cost estimate was around $42 million. Walker says adding a penny to the local option sales tax for five years — as this ballot measure seeks — is a better way to finance the project than using a bond tied to property tax revenue. “(When you) tie it to ad valorem, you are pledging a portion of tax revenue for 30 years, or whatever the life of the bond is, to the project.” The added penny before voters now ends in five years and cannot be used for anything other than the courthouse project. And it has a provision in it to sunset before five years if it looks as if the project will be paid for. “That’s what we did when we built the jail,” Santa Rosa Sheriff Wendell Hall says. “ And that’s what we’re trying to do to get people to realize it is for a specific need and it will sunset.” Cold and crowded The core of the downtown courthouse was built in 1927. Two wings were added in 1959.

To keep the largest courtroom usable, the old, water-chilled air conditioning system must nearly always stay on, which means the typical temperature in the room hovers around 58 degrees. Turn it off and after about 20 minutes, “those skylights leak like it’s raining in here,” said Sheriff Sgt. Rickie Cotton. “The people who work in here all day bring space heaters.” Jurors are routinely told to bring sweaters or blankets. The hallways there are so narrow that witnesses, family members, judges and inmates all literally bump up against each other as they pass on their way to court. “We do the best jobs we can possibly do, but it is not a secure courthouse,” Hall says. Hall’s deputies provide court security, but with the close quarters and accessibility issues, that job is not easy, he says. The access issues also extend to the Americans With Disabilities Act. In 2007, a woman in a wheelchair fell from a ramp and suffered injuries that led to the amputation of a leg. The county paid a $800,000 settlement and was required, under the ADA to make more than $100,000 in accessibility renovations. In 2008, a modular section was added on the back of the structure that now houses Circuit Clerk Donald Spencer’s office, which includes his 65 employees. But that series of mobile homes strung together is showing wear. The walls under the window unit air conditioners are turning soft. The floors are splitting where the trailers bump up against each other. Some parts of the annex are propped up with four-by-fours, the rest with hollow metal posts of marginal stability. All it would take, says Spencer, is a piece of skirting to be peeled back by a storm or hurricane and “there’s no telling what could be done.” Since 2003, the county has spent $3.3 million of repairs, renovations, additions and settlements related to the current building.

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Right location Santa Rosa Commissioners tried again after the 2002 effort failed, but in 2008, they tabled another try, believing that the economic times were against them. Since 2011, the commission has worked on moving forward with developing a plan to take to the citizens. This is their next bite at the apple. The new facility will have about 266 employees, including current courthouse employees and state attorney’s office, public defender’s office, guardian ad litem, court administration, security and maintenance. It also will have updated technology infrastructure, which will be increasingly important as the use of video court appearances expands, Spencer says. Walker, Hall and Spencer all note that the downtown location is not adequate to handle the needs of the county that has grown some 40 percent in the last 10 years. “(That growth) is not going to stop,” Hall says. “It’s going to continue to grow. Regardless of how you feel about the downtown site, downtown will never expand to the level that will be needed in 50 years. Hall believes the right location would have a huge economic impact, leading to attracting more attorneys and people whose business is centered about the courthouse. Hall says he is OK with wherever the new facility goes, At the East Milton site, trips will be shorter for most people than at Pea Ridge, he says, but manpower will be the same. “Build it where it will best serve the people who are paying for it,” Hall says. “Don’t worry about the sheriff and the inmates.” Indeed, as Spencer points out, from April 2013 to July 2014, 161,934 people used the courthouse. Of those, 4,144 were inmate transports — 2.56 percent of the total. The rest were members of the public. “The citizens would be investing a one-cent sales tax for five years into something that would last 75 or 100 years,” Spencer says. “The courthouse is old, it’s tired and it’s time for it to rest. That’s the way I look at it.” In fact commissioners had settled on using the Pea Ridge site early on in the process, but an offer of donated land near the Peter Prince Airport in East Milton came to light. And a group of people who support leaving the courthouse in downtown Milton rose up, saying if the courthouse moves, it will kill downtown. “One of the things I remember from 2002, there was a discussion that the courthouse was a deterrent to growth of downtown because once 4:30 p.m. comes, it’s evacuated,” Walker says. “It’s this empty shell as opposed to a more vibrant area.” And as Hall points out, “The city limits of Milton go all the way to Kmart.” What would become of the current courthouse if the new one is built elsewhere? That hasn’t been formally discussed, but Walker says that back in 2002, the plan was to remove the wings and use the historic core of the building, with updates. It also could be used to store archives or for related functions that don’t have to be in a secure courthouse, Walker says. And what happens if voters reject the one-cent sales tax? Walker says the county will eye the 2016 election cycle to make their case again. “We’ll just hitch up our britches and try to do a better job of getting it done,” Walker says. “We don’t have an alternative other than hemorrhaging money.”

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The case for a new Santa Rosa courthouse

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