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• The Boazd also discussed exploring other ways of increasing efficiency of operations in the <br />Court administration through consolidating court facilities. County staff will be working on <br />research in this area. <br />The suburban communities have been very cleaz about the need for the Suburban Court to <br />remain open in order to provide a location that is more central to the cities geographically, and to <br />address the problem of removing officers from patrol for extended periods of time if they have to <br />go downtown. It is also very expensive to lose patrol hours for those officers, as well as pay to <br />pazk downtown. The possible closure of the court would be more expensive (both in terms of <br />dollazs and service levels) for suburban cities in the long run because of these factors. <br />Options <br />The Ramsey County staff presented a variety of options for restructuring the Court's facilities. <br />The Board will be analyzing these, and trying to determine which of them can be eliminated <br />from consideration as part of their process over the next month. They did agree to remove <br />Option E from further consideration. I have attached copies of the handouts from the meeting <br />for your perusal. <br />Commissioner Haigh specifically stated that she would not support operations costs being added <br />to the County budget for the Courts. She said that the County negotiated the State takeover of <br />the Court for that reason, and the County would be backpedaling on the agreement if they began <br />to fund operations of the Court. She also said that the Court needed to provide an operational <br />plan for staffing a new suburban facility, and that she felt the Court was squeezing the County <br />Board to provide operations money because of the suburban facility issue. <br />Judge Mott said that the Bench was willing to work with the Boazd to fmd solutions. He said it <br />would be helpful if the Board could give the Bench some direction in terms of the various <br />solutions presented by staff, and suggested that some of the options be eliminated right off the <br />top. The Board said they would examine them, and try to come up with some direction in the <br />next month for staff and the Bench. <br />Rettman stated that she would not go higher on the debt service for the County's FY04 Budget, <br />and urged staff and the Bench to find other solutions. <br />Analysis• <br />In my opinion, the County Board knows the importance of keeping the Suburban facility open. <br />They did unite in their opinion that the operations costs associated with the Court were not the <br />responsibility of the County. They were less united in their consideration of capital spending for <br />a new Suburban facility; however, if there was an option that would limit debt service, preserve <br />the court in some suburban location, and solve the ongoing operational shortfall for the Court, <br />the Boazd might agree to a capital expenditure for a new or expanded Suburban facility. I <br />believe that we have at least three Commissioners who are going to fight to keep the Suburban <br />• facility open. For at least one of the Commissioners, the issue is well understood, and this <br />person knows the importance of keeping the facility open; however, the issue of debt service is <br />