LV Municipal Court closing three days to install system

Las Vegas Municipal Court will be closed Wednesday through Friday so court employees and an outside consultant can install the first new computer-based case management system at the busy court in more than two decades. Jill Christensen, administrative secretary for the court, urges residents with pressing municipal court business to come in by 5 p.m. today.

The court will reopen at 8 a.m. Monday on the main floor of the Regional Justice Center, 200 Lewis Street.

Christensen said staff adjusted the court calendar because of the $1.37 million installation. People who had appearances or hearings scheduled during the closure were notified by mail and had their cases moved to new dates.

Also, any traffic tickets with court dates scheduled for this week were changed. "We're trying to get people to come in before their court date," Christensen said. "We really encourage people to take care of business prior to the closure."

Court Administrator Jim Carmody said the new case management system will replace the now-archaic Legacy system that was installed 22 years ago.

Christensen said the new system will reduce the wait time in Municipal Court. Currently, people take a number and wait to be called. "We hope it cuts down time, but there's going to be a learning curve."

Carmody said it became impossible to interface the Legacy system with information systems used by other law enforcement agencies. The new system, said Carmody, is "state of the art" and will interface with other agencies' databases.

Joseph Marcella, director of the city's Information Technologies department, said people will be able to access their court records online. For the first time, fees and fines can be paid on the Web or by phone.

"This will allow us to leverage technology that has been available for a long time, but not to us," Marcella said. Marcella said the city saved money by building a custom system with Information Technologies personnel and contractor Nevsys.

But saving money wasn't the only reason to keep it in-house, he said. "It's not like there's a system out there we could go buy off the shelf and do what we need it to do."

Contact Doug McMurdo at dmcmurdo@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135.