Reconsider Courthouse Bond

With all the letters suggesting an appropriate use for the former City Hall lot, maybe we should consider that the defeat of the bond measure to build a new courthouse on that very same lot is not a decision by the voters that won’t be reconsidered at some juncture in the future.

A courthouse is the center of a vital community. What we have now is a facility, as it was intended. It has served the community adequately for its intended use for more than the projected time it was designed for. Anyone who has visited the courthouse has assuredly noticed the inadequacies cited as reason for a new one.

Allow me to suggest a practical reason for the reconsideration of this bond, and the attendant prospective use for the lot now awaiting its construction.

Alternative dispute resolution and mediation is the future of our justice system: reduction in caseload, preferred outcome for all parties, a process of resolving disputes amicably, etc,

Everyone knows mediation and ADR works. The fact that there is nowhere for this ADR and mediation to take place at the current courthouse should require that we remedy that inadequacy by passing the next bond to build the new courthouse.

We need a benchmark courthouse to represent who we are as a community: vital, productive and ready for the future.

We are going to need a place for it.

Ray Colby

Eugene