San Diego, L.A. Win Court Bond Prizes

SACRAMENTO — In the race for California courthouse bond funding, San Diego may be the big winner.

San Diego County Superior Court would receive $1.18 billion — yes, that’s billion with a “b” — for a new, sprawling 710,000-square-foot courthouse as part of a $5 billion bond spending plan (.pdf) that the Judicial Council will consider Friday. The proposal would divvy up the $5 billion, approved by the Legislature this year, among 41 new construction and renovation projects in 34 counties. (Click here to see a list of the projects in each county.)

The new San Diego complex would include a minimum of 71 courtrooms serving civil, criminal and family law cases, said Kelly Quinn, senior manager of planning for the Administrative Office of the Courts. The central San Diego building would be rivaled in size only by the 101-courtroom Stanley Mosk Courthouse in Los Angeles.

“It’s a big, big project,” Quinn said.

The list of projects proposed for bond funding includes 12 already approved by the Judicial Council and another 29 recommended by judicial planners last week. The existing courthouses that would be renovated or replaced have been ranked the worst of the worst by a complex formula gauging security, physical conditions and overcrowding.

Los Angeles County Superior Court, the largest trial court in the nation, has six projects on the list totaling nearly $424 million. Sacramento County also secured a major share of the bond pie with a $549 million allocation for a new criminal courthouse.

Planners also are recommending that $44 million go to a new family courthouse in San Jose, a joint project with Santa Clara County. Alameda County would also see $50 million for a new east county courthouse under the proposal.

Even tiny Plumas County will receive $25 million for a new courthouse in Quincy, where two judges now preside in a cramped building constructed in 1921.

“As one [county executive] once said, we work in a state-of-the-art 1920s courthouse,” said Superior Court Judge Ira Kaufman, who added that he and other court staffers were “thrilled” to learn their project had landed on the bond-funding list.

Like many other aging courthouses around the state, the Quincy building has limited security, no inmate holding cells and no rooms where attorneys and clients can meet privately. Less than two weeks ago, a shackled in-custody defendant being escorted from the third-floor courtroom was injured when he jumped to a public stairway landing between the first and second floors, Kaufman said.

“It’s a beautiful old building, but like everything else times have changed,” he said.

Twenty-eight projects deemed eligible for funding by the Judicial Council earlier this year did not make the final list. San Francisco didn’t have any eligible projects.

Planners said that the $5 billion, which will be secured by higher filing fees and criminal penalties, won’t cover everything, and that they nixed some eligible courthouses in counties that received money for other projects. Among the victims: Contra Costa County, which had sought $65 million for a new north Concord courthouse. A new Santa Clara County court in Mountain View was also left off the list, as were four projects in fast-growing Riverside County.

Construction on the first wave of projects is scheduled to start in 2013, although judicial leaders must still secure legislative approval of their plans.

Alameda: New East County courthouse
Alpine: New Markleeville courthouse
Butte: New North County courthouse
El Dorado: New Placerville courthouse
Fresno: Renovate county courthouse
Glenn: Renovation and addition to Willows historic courthouse
Imperial: New El Centro family courthouse
Inyo: New Independence courthouse
Kern: New Delano courthouse; New Mojave courthouse
Kings: New Hanford courthouse
Lake: New Lakeport courthouse
Los Angeles: New southeast Los Angeles courthouse; new Glendale courthouse; renovate Lancaster courthouse; new Santa Clarita courthouse; new Eastlake juvenile courthouse; new Los Angeles mental health courthouse
Mendocino: New Ukiah courthouse
Merced: New Los Banos courthouse
Monterey: New south Monterey County courthouse
Nevada: New Nevada City courthouse
Placer: New Tahoe area courthouse
Plumas: New Quincy courthouse
Riverside: New Indio juvenile and family courthouse; addition to Hemet courthouse
Sacramento: New Sacramento criminal courthouse
San Diego: New central San Diego courthouse
San Joaquin: Renovate juvenile justice center
Santa Barbara: Renovate and add on to Santa Barbara Figueroa courthouse
Santa Clara: New San Jose family resources courthouse
Shasta: New Redding courthouse
Sierra: New Downieville courthouse
Siskiyou: New Yreka courthouse
Solano: Renovate Fairfield Old Solano courthouse
Sonoma: New Santa Rosa criminal courthouse
Stanislaus: New Modesto courthouse
Sutter: New Yuba City courthouse
Tehama: New Red Bluff courthouse
Tuolumne: New Sonora courthouse
Yolo: New Woodland courthouse