(STORY BY ANGELA BRIGGS/WCLU NEWS)
With all the talk around town about the new Judicial Center, WCLU News wanted to talk with Barren County Circuit Judge John Alexander, who sits on the Project Development Board. This board is the group tasked with working out the details from plans to pavement, with the Administrative Office of the Courts, AOC for short.
Much talk has lumped the judicial center project in with the Glasgow downtown park project and what is going where and when it will go there. When it comes to the two projects, they are not mutually exclusive. Judge Alexander said that they did, however, look into ways they could integrate the two:
The judicial center project is still in the early planning phases, and Judge Alexander said they have not made a final decision on location
The Project Development Board had their monthly meeting yesterday afternoon where they took questions , with some being about the funding of the project. When it comes to who is on the hook to pay for the over $30 million dollar facility, that will be the AOC. Each year AOC will make a payment, or bond obligation as they are called, directly to the bond holders. These annual payments cannot exceed around $3.1million dollars, with this amount being set in the beginning. These payments are expected to drop a little each year, but they cannot exceed the maximum amount set. The amount of the bid the group ultimately decides to accept for the project, will have to reflect the total amount that will be paid back over the life of the bond, meaning that when they do the math the payback amount and the bid amount should be nearly the same.
Another question was can AOC pay the county the maximum amount annually, instead of paying the bondholders directly, and then they county pay the bond obligation? This would mean the county could make a profit as the bonds mature. No. The legislature approved these projects with the funding restrictions and payback mechanisms already in place.
When it comes to spending part of the money allocated for the judicial center on other projects, Judge Alexander said the money must be spent construction of a new judicial center:
They board did go into closed session during the afternoon meeting, to discuss the potential acquisition of property. Having these discussions in closed session gives the board a better place when it comes to negotiating a potential purchase . Any vote or action the board takes, such as buying a piece of property, will be done in an open meeting:
Moving forward, Judge Alexander says he is excited about the project and thinks it will be a good thing for the county. He encourages anyone who is interested to attend their monthly meetings which are the last Wednesday of each month at 1pm in the fiscal court chambers.
