I am doing a little “muckraking” project. Specifically, I am trying to find out how much money has been spent on the Middlesex County (MA) courthouse (criminal court). The building was erected in the early 1960’s, and has been rebuilt several times. The latest is that the building has been found to be structurally deficient, so they want to tear it doen, and build a new one.
I haven’t been able to get any infor from my local rep; is anyone familiar with Middlesex County (MA) records? Where should I begin?
If the city or county requires building permits, then you could ask for the records. A permit should have been pulled for each renovation. There is a place on the permit which lists the estimated amount of construction.
That is, if permits are required.
ETA: that request should be made at whichever department has the Building Offcial or does building inspections. You should be able to get an open records request going there.
Are you referring to the Middlesex Superior Court in Cambridge? Are you aware that the court moved to Woburn more than 2 years ago?
That’s what I was thinking. And isn’t the court on Mystic Valley Parkway in Medford a relocation of a Cambridge court as well?
Ralph, as a former U.S. Census worker, I’ve found the website www.masslandrecords.com to be interesting. However, I put in a couple of courthouse addresses and didn’t come up with anything.
I am kidding when I say this but not really. This is Massachusetts you are talking about. You can just give a range of $1 million to $10 billion dollars and every estimate will be included in that and make everyone happy. You are trying to ride a unicorn through the Valley of Mysterious Numbers and no one has ever made it through one of those less confused than they began.
What are you trying to show exactly? Exact numbers, especially old ones are just one of those Massachusetts things that are up for extreme interpretation.
I doubt you’ll find a convenient list of expenses on the building. I’m not even sure if Middlesex county has a clerk it might simply be handled at the state level.
There is going to be an office somewhere that cuts the checks to the contractors that build and maintain the court houses. You’d need to search through their logs to identify what check went where.
If you see a contractor working on the building you could simple ask them what office they are paid out of.
You could also ask the clerk at any of the Middlesex court houses what office is responsible for cutting the checks.
I think you’ll find it a bit of work to hammer down some solid numbers.
I believe that the trial court moved to Medford and the Superior Court moved to Woburn. Both were formerly in the same building, the Edward J. Sullivan Courthouse, at 40 Thorndike Street in Cambridge. The building was apparently built in 1971, and I doubt much money was spent in rebuilding it, as everything still looked straight out of the 1970’s and pretty shabby up until they all moved out. A bit of Googling indicates that the state estimated refurbishing the building at somewhere in the $130M range, and the building’s value at $50-70M, before the real estate bubble burst.
I suppose one place to look for expenses would be the state’s Department of Capital Asset Management (DCAM), who own the building. I think they would be the most likely people to have records of such expenses.
And here’s a link to information on requesting information under Massachusetts’s Public Records Act: http://www.buzzardsbay.org/rightoknow.htm
Conveniently, the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s offices and the DCAM are only a couple floors apart in the McCormack State Office Building, in case you need to harass them in person.