A new era for city council, municipal court in Girard

GIRARD — The hard feelings and strained relations between city council and Girard Municipal Court have seemingly been replaced with a desire to work together.

City officials and Judge Michael Bernard, over the last several years, have engaged in heated disputes over court funding and the use of court facilities by city officials. The disagreement over court funding was the basis for a court battle between the judge and city in 2006.

Judge Bernard also banned council from using the court facilities in 2006 — saying he was separating the court from city politics, after city leaders had made disparaging remarks about the court. The city took that matter to court as well. A judge ultimately found in favor of Judge Bernard.

Those problems have now gone away.

Judge Bernard said he cut $110,000 from his budget request to the city for 2008. He said the request for 2008 is about $671,000, down from the 2007 funding amount of $782,000.

Judge Bernard said shaving the dollars from his budget was difficult and involved a considerable amount of consolidation and placing employees “in positions of dual roles,” but the court has been able to manage.

“We are struggling, but with a little burning of the midnight oil we are able to meet our obligations,” he said.

Judge Bernard also offered the city a “no strings attached” financial offering of $50,000 in 2007. He said the money, taken from various special revenue funds in the court, was meant to help the city recover from fiscal emergency.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.