Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley will commit to providing funding for a new Montgomery County District Courthouse, his spokesman said Friday.
Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett listed obtaining $65 million for the construction of a new district courthouse in Rockville among his legislative priorities for the 2008. Some local leaders were upset last year when O’Malley did not include the project in his budget for the current fiscal year.
The location of the new courthouse has been a point of contention. County legislative and judiciary leaders have lobbied for the new building to be constructed as originally planned at the site of a library located across the street from the current district court. Some Rockville city leaders, though, wanted the courthouse built blocks away on the current site of a Giant food store.
Chief District Court Judge Ben Clyburn said he backs plans to build on the library site because $5 million has been spent on plan for that location.
“This thing has been on the drawing board for nine years,” Clyburn said. “For the city of Rockville to come forward and say they weren’t included here or there, they slept on their rights. It’s not that they haven’t had adequate time … in fact it was a city of Rockville planner that proposed the library site in the first place.”
In a November 2007 letter obtained by The Examiner written by Maryland‘s Secretary of Management and Budget, T. Eloise Foster, to Del. Brian Feldman, chair of Montgomery‘s state house delegation, Foster said O’Malley was committed to funding construction of the new court at the library site in the coming fiscal year 2009 budget.
“However, should the legislative delegation and local leadership come to a consensus agreement that an alternative siteshould be pursued, the Governor would certainly be supportive of such a decision,” Foster’s letter said.
Sen. Rona Kramer, chairwoman of the Montgomery County Senate delegation and Feldman sent O’Malley a letter Friday reminding him of his commitment to fund the project.
“We don’t want any further delays in the project that would require extra millions to be spent on new design at another site,” Feldman said. “We think it would just delay the project. Every year of delay the costs go up a couple million of dollars.”
