Tuesday, April 7, 1998 | 10:20 a.m.
The Nevada Supreme Court wants to get in on the top floor of a $119.5 million Regional Justice Center planned for downtown Las Vegas rather than rent office space when it starts holding three-judge panel hearings.
"The justice center offers an attractive option to meet the court's long-term needs at a reasonable cost at a very convenient location," Karen Kavanau, director of the administrative office of the court, said. "We feel that this alternative should at least be explored in the exercise of good judgment."
The original plan was to ask the 1999 Legislature to finance a long-term lease for 25,000 square feet, but court officials said it would be about half as expensive in the long run to build space in the Regional Justice Center, which is scheduled to open on the site of the Rainbow Vegas hotel in 2001.
The request has posed a number of logistics problems for local county and court administrators and their architectural and engineering consultants, who are a month from finalizing plans for the center.
"There are many steps to go through yet, including the configuration of a state-funded proposal for inclusion in the project," Assistant County Manager Mike Alastuey said.
The county still needs to know whether the court can obtain sufficient financing to cover other incremental costs, and if that financing is timely enough to not adversely affect the county's schedules, Alastuey said.
There also could be some roadblocks thrown up by northern lawmakers who are reluctant to have the Supreme Court expand its operations in Southern Nevada for fear it will eventually pull out of Carson City.
The Supreme Court needs $410,000 to cover its share of the design costs to be included in the Regional Justice Center. The only place to get that money is a contingency fund controlled by the Interim Finance Committee, whose chairman, Sen. Bill Raggio, R-Reno, is opposed to anything that smacks of a permanent southern home for the Supreme Court.
Clark County District Judge Nancy Becker, who has spearheaded the justice center project and is running for one of two new state Supreme Court seats, appeared before the Interim Finance Committee to support the request.
"This is a brief window of opportunity for them to know if they're in or out," District Court Administrator Chuck Short said.
Even if the Supreme Court gets the money to contribute to the building's design, it must wait until the 1999 Legislature to request an additional $4.6 million it will cost to build the 26,000 square feet of space it will need at the Regional Justice Center.
"I think it's going to be a toss-up," said Justice Robert Rose, who appeared before the Interim Finance Committee two weeks ago to ask for the design money. "It's a close call whether we're going to prevail, though I think we made a good case."
The committee members had two chief concerns: whether the contingency fund can be used for such a purpose, and whether the court has shown sufficient need to be part of the Regional Justice Center five years from now.
Rose said it's hard to deny the need since 65 percent of the court's cases are from Clark County. And expansion of services in Southern Nevada is inevitable, Rose said, as the number of cases grows from 2,000 to 3,000 a year.
"What we've done to handle the tremendous case load is to divide all cases into panels of three to double our decision-making ability," Rose said. "Only on major cases would we sit as seven in Carson City. That means there would be substantial activity in Las Vegas."
The Regional Justice Center is part of a $202 million criminal justice construction program financed in part by proceeds from a $120 bond issue approved by voters in 1996. Most of that bond is tapped for a $78 million 1,300-bed expansion of the Clark County Detention Center and a $40 million renovation of the Juvenile Justice Detention Center.
The remainder of construction finance will come from municipal, justice and district court administrative fees, administrative assessment bond proceeds, county general obligation bonds and capital construction funds and state grants.
Because the district and justice courts will occupy most of the justice center, the County Commission will finance $90.5 million, or 75 percent of the costs.
How much the City of Las Vegas was going to contribute for its municipal court until recently was unknown.
Last year, Las Vegas Deputy City Manager Steve Houchens said the city could only afford to spend $10 million for approximately 35,000 square feet of space.
But Municipal Court Administrator Mike Havemann said that judges and court staff calculated they could squeeze $29 million out of the court construction and administration fees over the life of a 25-year bond.
Havemann said he discussed the plan with city officials in October, and their financial staff verified the court could raise the money.
"Since that time we have been working on an interlocal agreement with the county," Havemann said.
The County Commission is scheduled to vote on the agreement April 21, followed by the City Council on April 27.
Once the interlocals are approved, Burnette said, the County Commission will have to amend its construction management and architecture contracts and redo its project budget.
"Obviously we need a fully executed interlocal agreement before we present to our board an amendment to the contracts related to the project," Burnette said. "Then the project budget will have to be amended."
While the Supreme Court appears to be a Johnny-come-lately, Rose said it has always been the court's desire to be a part of the justice center.
"We've been monitoring it, and we were hopeful it would accommodate us," Rose said.
But the Supreme Court couldn't commit until it had a clear idea what the costs would be, Rose said. That didn't occur until last fall, when the county and city finally agreed on the location for the justice center and condemned a block of Lewis Street for expansion of the detention center.
Then it became too late for the 1997 Legislature.
"We needed to know what the hard core numbers were going to be," Rose said. "It was too uncertain to bring to the Legislature for an appropriation request."
The county initially wanted the high court to be part-owner, which would have meant putting up $4-5 million that it didn't have. After the county agreed to a long-term lease arrangement, the court went to the Interim Finance Committee, Rose said.
"That's when it really made sense to us, and we thought if we don't go to them now we will lose a window of opportunity," Rose said. "It was too uncertain last session and it will be too late next session."
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