[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish Courthouse move is marathon effort

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Parish Courthouse move is marathon effort
By Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune 
April 17, 2010, 9:04PM

By mid-day Friday at the St. Bernard Parish Courthouse, boxes were stacked
in judges' chambers, desks were shrink-wrapped and thousands of court files
were being carefully wheeled onto trucks parked near the front steps.

The clerk of court's office suspended work by noon, except for emergency
filings, as dozens of computers and most of the phones were packed up and
carted away.

It was the first of what will likely be three marathon days of moving all
operations of the 34th Judicial District Court from the 70-year-old
courthouse on St. Bernard Highway into a series of six offices in the
Village Square strip mall about a mile away. The parish and FEMA are about
to begin yearlong, $3 million repairs and renovations to the courthouse. 

Contractors found elevated levels of mold in the building last fall.

The parish assessor's office, also based in the courthouse, moved its
operations to a building near the Village Square strip shopping center last
week.

The clerk's office was first on the list Friday. As movers were packing up
computers and desks at the courthouse, workers at the new temporary site on
West Judge Perez Drive still had lots of work to do. Some of the floor tiles
had not yet been laid, the paint was still drying and none of the electrical
outlets were in place in the three-story space.

A frazzled Lena Torres, the parish's clerk of court, summed up the
situation: "I don't know how we're going to be able to start work Monday.
Probably, the whole staff will be working all weekend."

The vast file rooms in the back of the clerk's office house everything from
notarial acts to civil and criminal cases and property records dating back
to the 1800s. Most of the older records won't go to the new courthouse
because of space, Torres said. Instead, they will be stored in a warehouse
on the north shore.

Parish President Craig Taffaro said FEMA has agreed to digitize many of
those older records, but that process could take many months. Torres said
the off-site storage will complicate matters for those seeking copies of
records dating to before Hurricane Katrina, but Taffaro said the records
will be available upon request. 

Some civil and criminal cases have been scanned into the system already.

Most of the judges' offices and the district attorney's office will be moved
today. Although the clerk's office is expected to be operational at the
Village Square site by Monday, court hearings will still be held at the old
courthouse through at least Tuesday.

Contractors will be working furiously through the weekend to finalize the
transformation from vacant strip mall to temporary courthouse. On Friday
afternoon, the building that will house the main courtroom still had a bare
concrete floor. 

Contractors were in the process of constructing a witness stand, judge's
dais and a jury box out of two-by-fours. 

Outside the strip shopping center Friday, piles of cardboard boxes were
stacked as workers readied the interiors of the commercial space. Many
courthouse employees will be back today, since the clerk's office was not
ready to move in by the end of Friday.


The St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Office will have more security guards
posted at the new courthouse site; there are six separate entrances instead
of one. 

There are no signs in place yet to mark where each office will be. The new
addresses will be:

Judge Robert Buckley's office, juvenile probation office: 9029 W. Judge
Perez Drive 

Main courtroom, Buckley's courtroom, district attorney's office: 9037 W.
Judge Perez Drive 

Judge Kirk Vaughn's office and courtroom, court reporters: 9049 W. Judge
Perez Drive 

Clerk of court's office: 9061 W. Judge Perez Drive: 

Judge Manny Fernandez's courtroom and office, Judge Jacques Sanborn's
courtroom and office: 9069 W. Judge Perez Drive: 

Judge Perry Nicosia's office and courtroom, adult probation office, parish
assessor's office: 9115 W. Judge Perez Drive. 

The telephone numbers for the offices have not changed.