Where's the security perimeter going to be? And when the heck will that information be announced? Those are the big questions still facing citizens who live and work near the site of this year's Republican National Convention, the Tampa Bay Times Forum.
An official involved with security told CL last month that the U.S. Secret Service would not announce this information until June — only a few months before the RNC begins in August. But Tampa City Councilman Harry Cohen said during Thursday's Council meeting that the sooner court officials know about what's happening downtown at convention time, the better.
"This lack of decisions being made is really starting to put pressure on the different participants in the court system," said Cohen, who works at the Hillsborough County Clerk of the Circuit Court’s office.
Cohen said moving trials out of the downtown courthouse requires "months of planning, and the longer these decisions remain unmade, the more difficult it will be, for example, for the Chief Judge to get permission from the Supreme Court in Tallahassee to make the kind of arrangements that he has to make in order to insure that justice flows smoothly that week."
