Lawmakers upset new Rockville courthouse left out of the capital budget

Friday, Jan. 26, 2007

Lawmakers upset new Rockville courthouse left out of the capital budget

by Douglas Tallman | Staff Writer

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ANNAPOLIS — Montgomery County lawmakers expressed regret that Gov. Martin O’Malley’s capital budget failed to include money for a new District Courthouse in Rockville, a project in the planning stages for four years.

‘‘If Governor Ehrlich had done this, the response would have been, ‘My goodness, my goodness, my goodness.’ The hue and cry that would have gone up,” said Del. Luiz R.S. Simmons, a lawyer who represents Rockville.

O’Malley (D) said the project could be included in a supplemental budget to be released later in the General Assembly session.

Still, lawmakers were unhappy with the $1.5 billion capital budget, which includes about $54.8 million in projects for Montgomery.

The budget fails to include money for constructing a $27 million science center for Montgomery College’s Rockville campus. In July, the Board of Public Works approved a $4.6 million contract to design the center.

‘‘We’ve ramped up school construction for K-12. There’s going to be a problem if there isn’t more money for classrooms at the community college level,” said Del. Charles E. Barkley, chairman of the Montgomery County House delegation.

The courthouse, however, posed a particularly painful pill to swallow for lawmakers. Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) had pushed the project to fiscal 2009 last year, but legislators inserted language in the current budget that construction should begin before 2009, said Barkley (D-Dist. 39) of Germantown.

‘‘The project is important for the administration of justice. It’s a project that should be added,” said Simmons (D-Dist. 17) of Rockville. ‘‘One Maryland should be One Maryland, not One Maryland funded by Montgomery County.”

‘‘One Maryland” was the theme of O’Malley’s inauguration last week.

‘‘If this doesn’t go through, the people who use the courthouse will have inadequate court facilities,” said House Majority Leader Kumar P. Barve (D-Dist. 17) of Gaithersburg.

The $62.5 million courthouse would have been built on the site of the old Rockville library. The state already has earmarked $10 million for the project, for demolition of the library and design for the new courthouse.

In recent months, Rockville Mayor Larry Giammo has questioned the project, particularly because of parking.

A Dec. 28 letter from Rockville City Manager Scott Ullery to R. Stevens Cassard Jr., interim secretary of the Department of General Services, raised the specter of untold thousands of people descending on downtown Rockville to fight their parking tickets.

‘‘In April 2005, State staff estimated that 22,000 traffic tickets were issued per month with 48% of those going to District Court. That’s over 10,000 people per month coming to the court for traffic violations alone. ... It is not unreasonable to expect that traffic will increase substantially at the site and within the immediate area,” Ullery wrote.

The argument rings ‘‘hollow,” said Sen. Jennie M. Forehand (D-Dist. 17) of Rockville. The site of the new courthouse is across the street from the existing court.

‘‘A different 10,000 people are now coming to the courthouse from across the street,” Forehand said. ‘‘I’m afraid if this thing gets tampered with, it will set back construction of the courthouse possibly by 10 years.”

The courthouse also has an advocate in Judge Ben C. Clyburn, chief judge of the District Court of Maryland.

He called Rockville’s objection to a new courthouse ‘‘fiscally irresponsible,” in a letter to O’Malley.

Because of Giammo’s recent objections to the courthouse, some have speculated that halting or delaying the project would make it easier for O’Malley to meet his pledge to spend $400 million this year on school construction.