Louisville Courier Journal Editorial: Stubborn Problem.
Stubborn problem
John Minton continues a very promising first few months as Kentucky's chief justice.
His latest effort is a promise to do something about the embarrassingly misconceived and mismanaged decade-long building program that has lavished $880 million on 65 new courthouses, many of them monuments to hubris and waste. Some of them needlessly replaced structures of historical significance.
They call the new ones judicial centers, the better to justify some of the extravagant size and overblown design, and no doubt legitimate uses can be found for some of the excess space. What's more, it's true that grand buildings lend gravitas to what goes on inside. Justice may be easier to pursue in a place that looks as if it should be taken seriously. But this was wretched excess.
The building spree pursued by former Chief Justice Joseph Lambert was only one way in which public trust in the justice system was compromised over the past 10 years. And taking a second look at the construction budget is only one way to begin restoring it.
There's an old Kentucky put-down, usually applied to the man who takes over a failed farmer's field and doesn't do much better with it: "He's still plowin' with the other fella's team."
Who in the Administrative Office of the Courts was responsible for the lousy oversight and the costly cronyism? Presumably some of the same people who are still there.
The public doesn't know, and can't find out, because to date the AOC's records have been excused from the requirements imposed on other parts of state government by the Open Records Law. As long as that's the case, public faith and trust in the justice system can't be fully restored.
Mr. Minton is doing many of the right things: Arranging for more public scrutiny of, and comment on, building projects, with better notice of oversight board sessions; using a computer-based system to monitor project spending; seeking comment and criticism of AOC practices and procedures from the National Center for State Courts; welcoming more inspection and analysis of judicial center building projects by Auditor Crit Luallen.
But he also has to have a willing team in harness.
John Minton continues a very promising first few months as Kentucky's chief justice.
His latest effort is a promise to do something about the embarrassingly misconceived and mismanaged decade-long building program that has lavished $880 million on 65 new courthouses, many of them monuments to hubris and waste. Some of them needlessly replaced structures of historical significance.
They call the new ones judicial centers, the better to justify some of the extravagant size and overblown design, and no doubt legitimate uses can be found for some of the excess space. What's more, it's true that grand buildings lend gravitas to what goes on inside. Justice may be easier to pursue in a place that looks as if it should be taken seriously. But this was wretched excess.
The building spree pursued by former Chief Justice Joseph Lambert was only one way in which public trust in the justice system was compromised over the past 10 years. And taking a second look at the construction budget is only one way to begin restoring it.
There's an old Kentucky put-down, usually applied to the man who takes over a failed farmer's field and doesn't do much better with it: "He's still plowin' with the other fella's team."
Who in the Administrative Office of the Courts was responsible for the lousy oversight and the costly cronyism? Presumably some of the same people who are still there.
The public doesn't know, and can't find out, because to date the AOC's records have been excused from the requirements imposed on other parts of state government by the Open Records Law. As long as that's the case, public faith and trust in the justice system can't be fully restored.
Mr. Minton is doing many of the right things: Arranging for more public scrutiny of, and comment on, building projects, with better notice of oversight board sessions; using a computer-based system to monitor project spending; seeking comment and criticism of AOC practices and procedures from the National Center for State Courts; welcoming more inspection and analysis of judicial center building projects by Auditor Crit Luallen.
But he also has to have a willing team in harness.
Labels: Justice, Kentucky politics
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 3:07 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home