It doesn't sound too bad in the abstract -- you've got elevators, manpower and a few hundred dollies and carts to accomplish a move over a weekend. And you're only going next door.
Then there's the fine print.
The old Anne Arundel County Court House has but one elevator -- it's too small for a lot of the furniture and it does not reach the third floor. Just about everything, some of which has to be dismantled first, has to leave through one door and can go into the new building through only one door. Hundreds of thousands of sensitive files and records have to be moved intact and in order.
And everything, from the digital court recording network to the case file tracking system, has to be up and running first thing tomorrow.
Moving the county courthouse is an undertaking so massive that it has not been done since 1823, when the historic part of the old courthouse on Church Circle in Annapolis was first occupied. Since then, the court has sprawled into additions. And that was before it had 26,000 open civil and criminal files, and its judges had enough reference books to pave Main Street.
The change of venue started Tuesday -- but the crunch came over the weekend, because the place where the public's deeds and misdeeds are recorded could not be closed to the public.
"It's a tough move, a tough one," said Walter F. Kneip III, supervisor for Maryland Office Relocators, which has a $27,000 contract to move the bulk of the contents of the courthouse.
Yesterday, court clerks, law clerks, supervisors, bailiffs, even judges could be spotted pushing carts, carrying lamps, wheeling furniture. And there were odd jobs to be done.
Chief bailiff David Colburn and bailiff Gene Long sat on a curb with bags of play sand. A new Old Glory and Maryland flag will stand in every courtroom, and the bailiffs were packing sand into the bases to prevent the banners from toppling.
Furniture tags and five floors were color coded, so that all blue labeled items headed for the second floor, where county facilities worker Tom Baldwin, floor plan in hand, directed traffic. Many workers also were color-coded -- movers in red company T-shirts, courthouse workers in teal Relocation '97 shirts and painting crews in speckled T's.
Jerome W. Klasmeier, county central services director, offered up a hot lunch for county employees, some of whom worked until 11 p.m. Friday and were back at 8 a.m. yesterday. He was grilling hot dogs behind construction trailers in what has been a makeshift parking lot for judges.
