My downtown adventure
Monday, 19 June 2017
I can’t say I was inspired by this lobby art; I can say that I was glad it is there. Or that art is there.
And the plants are a great touch.
I spent the morning getting processed through the jury duty bureaucracy. The line was the longest I’ve ever seen. In my experience, the check-in line is maybe 10 people waiting. I waited perhaps 40 mins—a significant change. And there didn’t seem to be more people in the assembly area. Weird. Or a signal that the process has changed.
I was picked in the second group, Juror Number 19. After all the questions from the judge and lawyers, and patient waiting by our subset of thirty, and fine displays of civic duty, I didn’t get chosen to be empaneled. Nor did the men on either side of me. The judge was confident that the case would be finished by day’s end, and if so, not so bad.
Downsides: the call-back rotation is down to one year (it used to be two); and, the county has upped our property taxes significantly in the last half-decade, although jurors still get a mere $25 per day. For the people who struggle just to pay the child care to come down for one day (and haven’t the money to pay for a second day), this seems a true hardship. I know county government budgets have been hammered for decades (over and over and over), but this seems like one place the $$ should be allotted. [Jurors are given the option of having their payment sent directly to the county library system, which is a nice touch, but doesn’t help those folks who really need the compensation.]
Oh, the firetruck. I left the courthouse to wait for my ride (thanks, babe), and saw a sheriff’s deputy standing by the loading dock entrance. Turns out he was waiting for this vehicle…and the one that arrived just after it, an ambulance from Grady, that pulled off the street, while the firetruck stayed curbside.
Loved the rear flag, but not sure if that’s okay treatment of the flag. After all, flag-behavior rules are lengthy.
And after all this, I went out to lunch with The Guru.