By Steve Otto
February 18, 2009
No Getting Out
Finally, you must have driven down Florida Avenue downtown in recent years and noticed the security and barricades in front of the Sam Gibbons Federal Courthouse.
I always assumed it was to keep people out. It turns out they may have been trying to keep the employees from escaping. Leaks and mold are so bad that parts of the 12-year-old structure have all but been abandoned.
Even U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich, someone you most certainly do not want on your bad side, has stopped holding trials in Courtroom 17 on the top floor of the building.
Sen. Bill Nelson, who was in town probably looking for ways to spend all that stimulus money, said he was going to raise Cain until something was done to fix the $81 million building. Nelson said roughly the same thing a year ago, but negotiations with contractors got bogged down.
Katy's Exposure 