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Judges order new court facility
The city can’t afford the cost of a new court facility, the mayor says.
YOUNGSTOWN — The city’s three municipal court judges are ordering city council and Mayor Jay Williams to “provide suitable facilities for the operation” of the court “now.”
The judges filed a journal entry Monday ordering the new court facility be at least 34,000 square feet.
City administrators say that they’d like to accommodate them but that there isn’t enough money for a new court facility. The city is facing a projected $3 million general fund deficit this year.
The judges’ journal entry doesn’t include a price for new court facilities. But previous estimates range between $8.2 million and $10.3 million.
When contacted Monday, Williams, who hadn’t seen the entry, said: “We certainly acknowledge the court should have a suitable facility. The issue has been finances. None of us are immune to the financial meltdown of the country.”
The judges have called for the city administration and council to address the court facilities — which they call “entirely inadequate” in the journal entry — since 1996.
“In some 12 years since it announced a need for more suitable facilities, city officials have taken but small steps, often with large gaps of time in between the steps, and there has been no real progress for the past five years, ” reads the entry signed by the judges, Elizabeth A. Kobly, Robert A. Douglas Jr., and Robert P. Milich.
The judges also wrote that the work must be done “now,” but doesn’t give a time frame.
Williams said that he’d review the journal entry and other documents with the law department and that they will “respond accordingly.”
The judges issued a journal entry in March 2008 permitting them to hire an attorney, using city money, to possibly take legal action requiring the construction of a new court facility.
The judges wanted the facility to be on the site of the former Masters building complex on West Federal Street near Vindicator Square.
But in Monday’s journal entry the judges wrote: “This is not to say that a new facility must be built, simply that suitable facilities must be provided.”
The entry specifically mentioned that the renovation of the Youngstown City Hall Annex on the corner of Front and Market streets “may be entirely appropriate” for a new courthouse.
“It has the ability to meet the needs of the court, provide adequate parking and accessibility, and has sufficient square footage,” the judges wrote.
The order includes specific details about the size and contents of courtrooms, chambers and related areas; a court administrator and probation suite; a suite for the clerk of courts; an area for use by the city prosecutor’s office; a police facility including holding rooms; and a public area.
The judges object to the current court facilities on the second floor of city hall at 26 S. Phelps St. There isn’t enough space, and there are safety and security issues, they say.
“The fact remains that the needs of the court have not been addressed,” the judges wrote in the entry.
skolnick@vindy.com