Agenda - 03-20-2001-6a - Laserfiche WebLink

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3 consultation with county officials. Where a municipality provides facilities, a part of the cost of court is remitted to the municipality. Consistent with state law, the Town receives court fees each year, in recognition of the Town's provision of court facilities. Revenues from this source were about $32,000 in the last fiscal year. We note that fees received aze not sufficient to pay the Court's fair share of costs for utilities, custodial. service and capital maintenance of the property; and, to this extent, the Town of Chapel Hill made a contribution to the operation of the courts. - There now is no lease agreement for the court facilities, nor is there any agreed-upon long-term plan for the use of the facilities. We believe that both a lease and along-term use plan would be of value to the Courts, the Town, and to Orange County. In the Committee's discussions, we observed that development of a long-term use plan might make it possible to agree on renovations and improvements that would benef t all the parties. We also noted the possibility that along-term plan for court use of the site might include the passibility of development at the reaz of the building. As we understand it, contemporary court facilities do not rely so much on large courtrooms,, such as the one at the Old Post Office, but more on a lazger number of smaller facilities. We believe it might be possible to develop such facilities and related offices at the reaz of the site. In addition, we note the possibility that the portion of the adjacent parking deck plaza that is designed to accommodate a small building might also be suitable for court use. TOWN COUNCIL PETITION The Town Council received the Committee's report and adopted the attached Resolution which, in part: "Requests that the Orange County board 'of Commissioners and appropriate Court officials, in consultation with the Council, develop along-term use plan for Court facilities at the Old Past Office; and, authorizes the Old Post office Committee to present the Resolution to the County Commissioners and to the Chief District Court Judge as a petition of the Council." We respectfully submit the Council's petition for your consideration; and, we will submit a similar report arid petition to Chief District Court Judge Buckner. " . On behalf of the Council, the Committee is prepared to begin the proposed work at the convenience of the County Commissioners and Judge Buckner. We recognize that staff support work will be necessary and will be pleased to provide such resources as we can to work together with County and Court staff. -