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persons and include office, secretarial courtroom. mor 7 7 c135 with the project an additional judges area, hearing room, and waiting area for the There. are a number of reasons why such an addition is required including; 1. Within the next five year period we can expect to get at least one if not two additional circuit judges in the 19th circuit. At the present time there is no office space available in the courthouse to provide offices to an additional judge. 2. .Additional courtroom space is necessary when cases are moved to this county or lengthy trials require additional judges to cover existing case load. Beginning June 12, 1989, Judge Geiger will be trying a criminal case that is expected to take between 6 and 8 weeks. At the end of August Judge Kanarek will be trying a 3 to 4 week civil trial and additional judges will be covering his regular case load. During these times there will not be sufficient courtrooms available to handle the matters that need to be taken care of. 3. There are currently two resident circuit judges hearing cases in Indian River County and three resident circuit judges with their offices in the courthouse. In the past there have been one or two non-resident circuit judges assigned to hear cases in Vero (this was before Judge Kanarek was appointed to the bench). It is expected that this will occur in the future however there is no office space presently available. 4. Many of the circuit court civil cases are now scheduled for mediation. Use of the mediation procedure has allowed us to keep pace with our ever increasing case loads by obtaining settlements in cases that wduld have otherwise required trial. At the present time we are using a conference room in the County Administration Building. It would be preferable that this mediation occur within the Courthouse and if an additional non -jury courtroom was available it would provide an appropriate setting for mediation. 5. Both county and circuit judges could make us of a non -jury courtroom in handling matters that should be held in a courtroom setting but do not require a jury. This would include small claims matters, juvenile proceedings, dissolution of marriage actions -and all related contested family law matters, and all non -jury cases in both circuit and county courts. 6. When the proposed courtroom was not being used for any of the above it would also provide quarters for grand jury proceedings and could serve a jury assembly area where jurors could wait until they were called to a courtroom. We rO believe that the site of a new non -jury courtroom and related offices would best be located in the courthouse annex in the space now occupied by the Public Defender's Office. We understange that.such a location would require that the Public Defender moved at additional expense however we believe that there are at least two overriding concerns which can only be resolved by keeping the additional courtroom in the present courthouse complex. First, from a security point of view it would be substantially easier and less expensive to provide courtroom and judge security for a space that was part of the courthouse complex. Second, as part of all court proceedings there is the necessity for access to court files and records. It would create a substantial burden on the Clerk to have to move files to an area away from the courthouse. 36