WTF? From Ron Littlepage our hero..... Today’s columnist challenge: Make a column about a parking garage interesting. Challenge accepted. It’s easier than one might think when it involves a parking garage deal that was smelly to begin with and only ripens with time. The garage in question is the courthouse parking garage. Yep. Another bad deal growing out of the $350 million courthouse. Imagine that. The garage was one of three built for the city by Metropolitan Parking Solutions. The original deal guaranteed MPS an 8 percent return on its investment with the city making up for any deficit. That’s right, 8 percent. The courthouse garage sat mostly empty while the drama over building the new courthouse played out. One year the city budgeted $2 million in taxpayer money to meet the guaranteed return for MPS. With the courthouse finally open, the garage has been filling up. You would think that the courthouse garage would be for the courthouse as the name implies. You would be wrong, especially when it comes to a critical cog in the justice system — jurors. That became a point of contention during a meeting of the City Council’s Finance Committee last month. The first startling revelation was that the vendor hired by the city to shuttle jurors from a parking lot at EverBank Field to the courthouse hadn’t been paid since March. Let’s just say Mayor Alvin Brown’s administration had a difficult time trying to explain how that happened. The second revelation was why jurors aren’t allowed to park in the courthouse parking garage for free. The city and MPS don’t want to kick out paying customers to make room for the jurors, especially on Mondays when the jury pool is large. Now follow the bouncing ball here. The courthouse garage is being used by court employes — makes sense — but also by city employees and employees of private companies, such as EverBank. MPS is jacking up the rate for the courthouse garage, which will drive many of the court employees out, the Finance Committee was told. And they likely will be replaced by the employees of private companies who can afford the jump in cost and who like the new garage better than the older ones in downtown. Where will the court employees go? A likely alternative is the parking garage at EverBank Center, formerly known as AT&T Tower. Lo and behold, who operates that garage? You got it: MPS. And jurors are left being shuttled to the courthouse from the stadium parking lot. That prompted City Councilman Stephen Joost to ask: “Isn’t the name the courthouse parking garage? Aren’t jurors part of the court process?” The answer to both, obviously, is yes. Councilman John Crescimbeni likened serving on a jury as a civic duty second only to serving in the military. Clearly jurors should be allowed to park in the courthouse parking lot for free. The Finance Committee instructed the mayor’s administration to come back with answers on paying its bills on time and a solution to juror parking when the committee meets next week. Stay tuned as this interesting — see, I told you — saga continues.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Aug 2013 14:24:07 +0000
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