Court Electronic Taping System Knocked Out By Ceiling Tiles

Buyer Beware ~

If you employ human beings in the justice system, they cannot be knocked out by a few ceiling tiles and cause huge delays in bringing fairness and the right to speedy trials as outlined by the Constitution. Read what happened recently in Florida. It would be enough to make me want to find out who authorized the purchase of the equipment and also find the person responsible for maintaining the courthouse!!

~ the Beagle

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NewsHerald.com
Jury out on ceiling repairs
By David Angier
PANAMA CITY [Florida]

Another portion of the Bay County Courthouse ceiling fell Monday as clerks were moving back into a room that was vacated for about three months when the ceiling fell there. Plaster fell in a small room where the courthouse’s electronic recording equipment, known as CourtSmart, is stored. It knocked the system out of commission.

Clerk of Court Harold Bazzel said he did not yet know how badly the system was damaged, but feared it could be an expensive repair. “It’s an old building in need of service,” he said. “What the county needs to do is conduct a study on it to determine what needs to be done.”

At lunchtime on Nov. 26, two newly installed air conditioners crashed into the ceiling tiles of Room 111, with one woman in the room. A heavy air-conditioning unit held to a beam by a rod broke free of the beam. It pulled another unit down with it. The damage displaced 10 clerks and the room was unusable until Monday. “They worked through the weekend to get it ready,” Bazzel said.

Clerks returned to their desks, eyeing the clean new ceiling panels and identifying which seats were beneath the air conditioner units. Recent rains, some of which seeped into the building, likely caused the damage Monday. A leaky roof also is blamed for another failure in a corner of Circuit Judge Michael Overstreet’s office on the third floor. Bazzel said workers are grouting that side of the building to try to seal it from further seepage.

Bob Packman, county facilities maintenance manager, said Monday that the courthouse was inspected after the ceiling collapse in Room 111 and a few problems were identified.

He said over the next few years, county workers will be inspecting conduits and ductwork to make sure it is supported correctly. “We identified some areas of minor concern that we’ll be looking at,” he said. Room 111 was given a general renovation at the same time the ceiling was being repaired, but Packman didn’t have a total on the amount spent. He said it will probably be around $35,000.

The air conditioning company did much of the ceiling repair, even though no one knows why the units fell, Packman said. “The AC company did it out of the graciousness of their heart,” he said.