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I attended my civic league meeting last night. Aside from listening to our Civic League President spout off ReEnergy propaganda, we got to hear a presentation by Mr George Schaefer, Norfolk’s Circuit Court Clerk. He gave his presentation on the proposed Norfolk Consolidated Courthouse Complex. Not only was he very informative, I think that anybody listening to him would support the new Complex.

First, he addressed the need for a new Courthouse. The main reasons are:

1. The current structures are out-dated: When they were constructed, the closest thing to a computer took up the same room as a courtroom. Each building has been retrofit with semi-modern computer systems, but they are nowhere near what should be in there. Then you have things like elevators, which are required for accessibility by disabled persons. Mr. Schaefer’s building has two elevators which were put in at different times. The newer one broke down last year. Well, it actually burned up, requiring fire department assistance. When they looked for repairs, they found that only one company in the state could fix it and they had a six-month backlog. While waiting for their elevator to be fixed, they had to accommodate every disabled person that needed help. Recently, their second elevator broke down. Come to find out, they do not make the parts anymore. Being as thrifty as possible, city maintenance realized that the elevator is the same model as is located in the now-defunct Kirn Memorial Library. In order to fix the Circuit Court elevator, they will cannibalize the Kirn elevators.
2. Lack of Space: The Courts currently store files in filing cabinets in the public hallways. Recently, Juvenile/Domestic Relations Court got an additional judge and another courtroom. Without actually expanding, their only option was to turn the waiting room into a courtroom. Nearly every Court has rented space outside of the current court buildings, costing the city thousands of dollars a month.
3. Security: Every new courthouse has a direct connection from the jail to the court. This connection is secure and isolated, eliminating the chance of an escape and minimizing defendant contact with prosecutors, judges, and victims. In Norfolk, however, defendants are brought right through the main hallway into General District Court, allowing them to get close to prosecutors, judges and victims. For Circuit Court, defendants must be transported via Sheriff’s Office vans from the jail to the Circuit Court building. There have been multiple escape attempts since the van does not have a secure entrance into the building, but rather pull right up to the door. Also, once again, everybody shares the same hallway inside. Please click on the image below for a larger version, showing how prisoners are taken into the Circuit Court building.

Circuit Court

Both the General District Court and the Circuit Court buildings were built with a 30-year lifespan in mind. The General District Court is now nearly 45 years old and the Circuit Court is nearly 40 years old. When a building gets to be this old, the maintenance costs increase exponentially. People wonder why age really matters on a building as long as they take care of it. I have heard people say that their houses are older but do not need replacement. I understand. My house was built in 1920 and is 89 years old. My house also does not get 200,000 visitors a year. The General District Court Building does. That many people are going to wear out whatever they visit.

Now, since we hopefully have establish need, we move to cost and funding. Mr. Schaefer reported that the cost has risen approximately $8 million a year since it was first proposed. In other words, for every year we wait, we might as well burn $8 million. There is also a new law in Virginia that was passed last session at the request of Norfolk. It allows any city whose court did not meet requirements as of January 1st of 2009, to charge a $4 fee to every person the comes before the court. Basically this law applies only to Norfolk and Portsmouth and would raise over $1 million a year. This doesn’t sound like much , but when you consider the new courthouse would have a 50-year lifespan, this would raise $50 million over the lifetime of the court complex. Then factor in the rent the city will save by moving outside offices back into the complex. Right now the Courts and the Sheriff’s office rents quite a but of office space in adjacent buildings downtown. They have offices on Main St. and Plume St. as well as in Dominion Tower. Norfolk has a Public Law Library in Dominion Tower, which would also be moved to complex.

A Consolidated Court Complex is desperately needed Downtown. It is needed now.

I keep reading about and talking to people who feel that ReEnergy is one step away from the Hand of God and we should accept their bid without question (see SellSPSANow.com). Interestingly enough, that very site was created by ReEnergy, LLC to promote themselves. For some reason, numerous civic groups have taken the bait and are now supporting this bid without hearing the other side of the story.

As the story goes, SPSA is in financial trouble. According to Virginian-Pilot reports, SPSA owes $240 million and is basically going to run out of money and collapse unless something is done for them. In an effort to raise money, SPSA put out a bid to sell it waste-to-energy plant in Portsmouth. ReEnergy, LLC., a company that is less than a year old, submitted a bid to buy not just the plant, but the entirety of SPSA for $205 million. SPSA, of course, rejected this unsolicited bid both times that it was submitted. The Pilot’s editorial board was quick to say that the bid was worth looking into and that SPSA should have held public comment on the bid before it was rejected.

The rest of the story, however, adds a few more details than they would like you to know. First, SPSA rejected the offer because it was unsolicited and SPSA therefore did not have enough information to push the bid to the next level (public comment). In fact, according to Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, the are a number of SPSA properties that have not been properly assessed, meaning that any bid would be improper. Also, if you look at the numbers above, you should see that they don’t add up. According to the Virginian-Pilot, SPSA owes $240 million. According to ReEnergy’s own website, their bid was $205 million. That leaves a gap of $35 million. Additionally, ReEnergy’s website states that their tipping fees would be 40% lower than the projected fees SPSA would charge. At the time that was written, the projected fees would have been $245/ton, meaning ReEnergy would have charged approximately $150/ton. That would save us only $20/ton when compared to the current rate now being approved as part of a bailout package ($170/ton). Once you factor in that they will not pick up our garbage and recycling, you should wonder what we area really saving.

ReEnergy’s proposal looks great in the short-run, but not so much for the long-run. Mayor Fraim also mentioned that the City Council is not opposed to the sale of SPSA. He just thinks that proper channels should be followed before it is considered. ReEnergy has spent a lot of money to make the cities look like the bad guys in this case when, in actuality, the member cities have come up with a completely viable plan. Finally, keep in mind that SPSA is in talks with both Covanta Energy and Wheelabrator Technologies for the sale of the waste-to-energy plant. SPSA hopes to get $200 million for the plant alone. Why should we take $5 million more for the whole thing? My biggest question: If ReEnergy, LLC can take over and turn a profit, why can’t we.

I have known that bicycles are required to be registered since I was in the 3rd grade, 13 years ago. Is my bike registered? No. Were any of my previous bikes registered? No. Its not that I didn’t want to get it registered. I’ve been telling myself to go do it now for years. Unfortunately, I have never had the time to or will to ride my bike to the nearest police station. There are no convenient stations. Regardless, the Norfolk police have apparently been cracking down on unregistered bikes for the past few years. Thankfully, they never got mine. It has caused me to think of a couple of things. First, I’m going to go get a registration on Tuesday because they are useful if your bike gets stolen. Second, I think there are two possible ways to solve the problem. They should either make registrations optional, or make them available at all police and fire stations, libraries, City Hall, and perhaps certain businesses, like bike shops.

The city finally figured out how to register my dog, by making the registration available at the vet’s office. Why not try the same for bikes?

I never really graspped the concept of using twitter to broadcast your every move, however, I will use it to keep my fellow bloggers/readers informed about anything that might be going on. Don’t expect a new post every 3 minutes, but give it a glance every once in a while. You can even subscribe to it. There is a widget to the right. ——>

The main reason that the Southside should get High Speed Rail: The Peninsula already has rail service. The Virginian-Pilot article said that “The Peninsula train would be $181 million and the trip would take just over an hour.” While not classified as ‘high-speed,’ I checked Amtrak. I can take an Amtrak from Newport News to Richmond in one hour and 10 minutes. That sounds pretty close to “just over an hour.” Would it not make better sense to fight for high speed rail to go to Downtown Norfolk, where it could tie in with the future regional hub for light rail? Perhaps in the future, a light rail connection could be built to tie in with a high speed rail station in Suffolk. That way the whole region is tied in together. The Peninsula should not be fighting the Southside and vice versa. Fighting together is what has brought us where we are now. Fighting has achieved nothing more in our area than an assorted collection of biggie-sized former farm roads and bottlenecks. We need to work together to show the businesses of the country and worldwide investors that this region is serious about working together to achieve anything. Right now, we have very little transportation-wise that could make our region look attractive. We live in a cul-de-sac of the Highway System, we currently rely soley on cars to move people, and we seem to fight about everything. We need to work together to show our legislators that we mean business. We will not settle for average. We want a regional mass transportation system. We want a highway system that does not bottleneck. We want a highway system without (pot)holes in it. We want a third crossing. These things are not magically going to happen. They need support from our elected officials in order to get funding. Everybody knows that elected representatives want to stay in office. I say: Fix it or get out. If our elected leaders cannot have the leadership to get things done, we don’t need them. But we need to show them we are serious. This high speed rail is the perfect start-point.