Why Waste Taxpayers' Money to Move the Supreme Court?

By Gary Tyack

The present Chief Justice, without a vote of the full Supreme Court, has embarked on a plan to spend over $90 million dollars to move the Ohio Supreme Court from one building in downtown Columbus to another building in downtown Columbus. This is a terrible idea, especially since school funding has not been resolved.

For many years the Supreme Court of Ohio has been located in the Rhodes Building in downtown Columbus. The building is one of the largest buildings in Columbus and has more than adequate space to house the Supreme Court's future needs. At most other governmental offices would need to be relocated to allow more space for Supreme Court expansion.

For reasons best known to Chief Justice Moyer, he is pursuing a plan to move the Supreme Court to the Ohio Department Building, about two blocks away. The Ohio Department Building is a sixty-five year old building which was never designed to handle the massive weight of the Supreme Court's law library. The estimate for the cost of shoring up the upper floors of the building and renovating the interior to accommodate the Supreme Court is currently $92.8 million. If the cost overruns for the work on renovating the Statehouse as any indication, the $92.8 million figure could be tens of millions of dollars low.

Judge Gary Tyack of the Tenth District Court of Appeals has said this is the wrong building in the wrong place at the wrong time. The building is wrong because of its age and condition. The place is wrong because it removes the Supreme Court form Capital Square while the other two branches of government are located. The time is wrong because school funding has not been resolved.

In short, this is a terrible idea being pursued by Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer without the express concurrence of the majority of the Ohio Supreme Court.