A Leon County grand jury opted not to investigate the building of the new $48 million 1st District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee.
The new building, scheduled for completion in November, has become a source of controversy after articles in the St. Petersburg Times detailed the expensive trappings at the new building at a time when courts are generally begging for money. The Times reported that each judge would get a 60-inch LCD flat television screen, a private bathroom with granite counter tops and a kitchen.
State attorney Willie Meggs took a complaint made to his office about the new courthouse to the grand jury Wednesday, but the panel decided that it would not move forward and investigate the matter.
I'm not aware of any criminal activity, Meggs said after the grand jury made its decision. It was an issue of the functioning of government that would be a matter for the grand jury to look at.
The push for the court began in 2005 when state lawmakers made the first appropriation for the building, $100,000. In 2007, the Legislature then authorized a $33.5 million bond issue. It was buried in a last minute, little noticed amendment to a transportation bill, which has since raised criticism that it was a backroom deal.
Democratic Chief Financial Officer candidate Loranne Ausley has criticized the new building, Gov. Charlie Crist has said he wished the money had been spent more wisely, and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink has said she planned to investigate how the project got approved.
The question draws parallels to the case involving ousted House Speaker Ray Sansom, who is currently facing criminal charges over his involvement in sending state money to Northwest Florida State College to build an emergency operations center that would have allegedly doubled as an airline hangar for frequent Sansom and Republican Party contributor Jay Odom.
That case too has been labeled an example of backroom deals. And when grand jurors released their indictment of Sansom in April 2009, it was as much an indictment of the state budgeting process as it was of Sansom. The indictment had noted that lawmakers seem to often have little idea of what is actually in the budget because of the enormous discretion wielded by the House speaker, Senate president and the budget chairmen.
Meggs rejected the comparison to the Sansom case though, noting that there may have been an attempt to disguise the airline hangar as an emergency operations center and a classroom.
My position -- personal position -- is I don't think there's any question that everyone knew we were building a courthouse, and that is in the legislation, Meggs said. So we're talking about building a courthouse. We're not talking about building a hangar or a classroom, we're talking about a courthouse.
