In a recent post labeled Courthouse Construction? Frozen until further notice Justice Brad Hill delivers bad news while attempting to put a positive economic spin to it. However, neither his numbers, nor do his conclusions add up without converting the PPP project to bond financing. For a little more detail as to why that might be, try and follow our logic here.
The Long Beach courthouse is performance based infrastructure. When the AOC bought the courthouse, unlike all other courthouses they also purchased 35 years of facilities management and facilities maintenance. What the justice is attempting to do is bifurcate the issue of courthouse construction costs from courthouse operations and maintenance so that he can grossly underestimate the hit to the 1407 authorized expenditures and push forward on a number of other projects that will ultimately blow their budget. Or at least buy them more time to convince legislators that it should be okay for them to legislate from Judicial Council offices. Factoring in operations and maintenance for 35 years doesn’t appear to be on Mr. Hill’s radar, much like all of the other operations and maintenance he and his committee is neglecting statewide to the tune of 2.5 billion dollars.
Unfortunately for Mr. Hill, with performance based infrastructure he bought a package deal and created a packaged obligation that can’t be bifurcated. We suspect that if people really want to be honest with each other and the rest of the branch, in the coming days prior to his meeting someone is going to have to factor in these other obligations and decrease the amount of available funding for other projects accordingly.
In reality, a place where Mr. Hill seldom visits, the real world costs of the Long Beach courthouse to authorized 1407 expenditures will be well above the 600 million in savings he has to find in the other projects. Factoring in the related construction like the parking garage and the O&M costs for 35 years is going to add another couple hundred million to his 600 million dollar figure. The real measurement of what the costs are to the 1407 fund is what the same rent payment would pay towards paying off the bonds. While we tried to find an online calculator that might have gleaned an equivalent number, amazingly the online calculators can’t deal with numbers this large so maybe one of you finance experts might be able to do the math. Regardless, the number is well above 600 million dollars and serves as a crippling blow to other courts statewide.
Now you can probably see in Mr. Hill’s message that he seems to believe that a courthouse construction project, a project whose astronomical costs don’t even appear to be authorized by any vote of the judicial council, he seems to be taking the position that the legislature mandated the project be a PBI and therefore the legislature should be obligated to pay for it. This is the snow job that those that speak with one voice will continue to babble, believing that a co-equal branch of government also gives them the right to create obligations without a vote of the people or their representatives. It matters not that the judicial council fiercely lobbied for the right to build a PPP over other alternatives; they weren’t the ones who passed the legislation, they argue.
While you might come away from this site with the belief that JCW is against court construction, we’re not. We have visited courts all over the state and know the state of disrepair of many buildings in the California court system. Many need to be replaced. However someone mistakenly handed the keys to the construction candy store to the irresponsible that are accountable to no one. In turn, they published an obscene price list of what they expected to be charged for a number of courthouses before ever putting them out to bid. No one seemed to notice or care that the total project costs exceeded the authorized bond expenditures by 1.5 billion dollars or that each resident of Alpine or Sierra counties was getting a $25,000.00 per person gift from the state that they didn’t want. Nobody seemed to notice or care that the AOC is renting the old Mono county courthouse in a shopping mall for the next 4 years even though it’s vacant. Hardly anyone seemed to notice that “transfer is the answer” was initially promoted by Mr. Hill, also in charge of county to state court transfers, assisted the counties in shedding these assets as well as the liabilities that they rightfully owned. So it should come as no surprise whatsoever that Mr. Hill has stepped into it again and it is again someone else’s fault.
Now our first thought is to make the Meridiam Infrastructure contract public and to post the contract on the AOC’s website for all to see to see what provisions might exist to unwind this deal into conventional bond financing. However much like the Deloitte boondoggle, we would expect that the AOC will tout trade secrets and other reasons they might not wish to release that contract without heavy redaction.
In our opinion, the legislative pushback on the AOC to fund the Long Beach courthouse consists of legislative checks and balances that are long overdue and refreshing to see. Someone is holding the AOC accountable. Accordingly, the entire rent payment should be paid for not by SB1407 funds but by the funds allocated to the AOC.
It is their mistake. They should pay for it from their own allocation.
Related articles
- Courthouse construction? Frozen until further notice. (judicialcouncilwatcher.wordpress.com)
- JCW’s twelve days of an AOC Christmas – 2012 (judicialcouncilwatcher.wordpress.com)
- Setting up the courts for an AOC takeover? (judicialcouncilwatcher.wordpress.com)
- Facts remain hidden in AOC power grab (judicialcouncilwatcher.wordpress.com)
- Los Banos courthouse plans in flux (mercedsunstar.com)
- State freezes courthouse projects in Modesto, Los Banos, Sonora (modbee.com)
- LA County courthouses to close due to massive budget shortfall (abclocal.go.com)
anonymous
December 4, 2012
Either take that man’s shovel away or issue him a Chinese visa.
Fiscal Director: Mono County Court
http://sacramento.craigslist.org/gov/3397864678.html
anon
December 4, 2012
This latest statement about “Mr. Hill” is just disgusting. “Mr. Hill” is “Justice Hill”. I don’t mind your complaints about the projects, the management or the financing of those projects but I do mind that you blame Justice Hill. The Long Beach Court financing debacle was incorrectly and incompetently negotiated a few years before Justice Hill was made chair or his committee, which was brand new at that time. He is trying to find a way out of this mess! Whether you agree or don’t agree with his methodology is fine but he is not the root of the evil.
Judicial Council Watcher
December 4, 2012
We’ll refer to him as justice when he insists that people in the AOC be held accountable. Until then he’s not doing anyone any favors by underestimating the seriousness of this debacle.There’s no justice in that either.
courtflea
December 4, 2012
“Justice” Hill has been an AOC talking head kool aide drinker for many many years. His fingerprints if not on this project, are everywhere.
courtflea
December 4, 2012
PS Mr Hill, just go grey gracefully. No one cares.
Wendy Darling
December 4, 2012
Published today, Tuesday, December 4, from Courthouse News Service by Maria Dinzeo:
Court Building Projects on Hold
By MARIA DINZEO
(CN) – In a blow to trial courts up and down the state, California’s judiciary has frozen more than 20 pending courthouse construction projects.
Justice Brad Hill broke the news in an email Monday, saying the group will convene next week to reassess projects they approved only months ago.
Hill, who heads the committee overseeing courthouse construction, said the council came up short on money expected from the state’s General Fund to finance a new courthouse in Long Beach, and is being forced to draw from projects funded under SB 1407.
“All indications are that there will not be General Fund dollars available next year to pay for the Governor George Deukmejian Courthouse,” he wrote, adding that the council had been lobbying to keep the Long Beach courthouse away from SB 1407, a law designating judicial branch revenues for $5 billion in construction bonds for new courthouses.
“We are, unfortunately, left with only one alternative under this scenario. SB 1407 funds must bear the burden of the Long Beach payments. Until we receive an appropriation to fund Long Beach payments, we cannot proceed on upwards of $600 million in planned SB 1407 projects. The branch has a responsibility to move forward with only the projects that we can afford. This, I know, is devastating news,” Hill wrote.
“Ultimately the Judicial Council will need to decide which projects must be indefinitely delayed to accommodate funding the new courthouse in Long Beach out of SB 1407 funds,” he said. Hill could not be reached for comment.
The $490 million Long Beach courthouse is being paid for by a private group of builders, architects and financiers, and will be leased to the state at a cost of roughly $50 million per year when it opens in August 2013.
The 35-year pact between the private Long Beach Judicial Partners and the Administrative Office of the Courts was criticized recently by the Legislative Analyst in a report that found the taxpayers would overpay $160 million under the contract.
The anlayst said the project was based on assumptions that steered the deal towards the private partners. In exchange for a building that costs $490 million plus maintenance, California was expected to pay $2.3 billion over time.
Hill’s news follows committee deliberations that resulted in seven projects being indefinitely halted.
The 23 remaining projects were given the green light, and are currently in various stages of plannning, from site acquisition to design. The most costly of these projects is a new 71-courtroom facility in downtown San Diego. Its authorized budget currently stands at about $620 million, but an AOC disclaimer says cost estimates are subject to change.
By next week, even more projects could be put on ice indefinitely or see their budgets cut dramatically.
Presiding Judge Laurie Earl in Sacramento said her court won approval months ago for $10 million to purchase land for a new courthouse. The latest news out of Hill’s committee could jeopardize the deal with the seller.
“There is frustration and fear that if we cannot give them the money that all bets are off,” said. “We thought we’d be breaking ground on our project by next Spring.”
Earl said the news is even worse for other courts. “There are other projects that need money to move forward that probably won’t see any money. And that’s just pushing things farther down the road.”
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/12/04/52824.htm
Long live the ACJ.
Wendy Darling
December 4, 2012
Also published today, Tuesday, December 4, from Courthouse News Service, by Bill Girdner:
Biggest Court in Nation Closes Courtrooms as CA Cuts Kick In
By BILL GIRDNER
LOS ANGELES (CN) – The biggest court in the nation is changing and shrinking, mostly because of California’s still idling economy.
The result for the Los Angeles court system is that more jobs will be lost, trials will be delayed.
“There is a reality here,” said Daniel Buckley, the incoming supervising judge for the court’s civil side. “The judges are proud of the service they provide to Los Angeles citizens. They cannot maintain that level of service.”
The judges are ratcheting down a court system that runs from Lancaster to Compton, from Santa Monica to Pomona. By far the biggest court in the nation, it is made up of an ever-changing web of 430 judges and their courtrooms that cover ten million people, one third of all the people living in California.
The main changes in the court’s organization will affect those portions of justice that most resemble mill work, the thousands of personal injury and collection actions that flow through the L.A. courts every month.
They will now go through a master calendar judge who assigns cases to a courtroom when they are ready for trial, as opposed to going through an individual judge who handles the case from start to finish. The huge number of collection actions in Los Angeles will be bunched into two courthouses where car dealerships are concentrated.
In terms of the physical plant — the courthouses themselves — fully 10 will be “repurposed.”
“We will take judges out of those courthouses,” said Buckley. “We will not use those courtrooms for judges being on the bench.”
Courthouses on the west side of town, in Malibu and Beverly Hills, will close. Their courts will be consolidated into the Santa Monica courthouse.
The courthouse on Catalina Island will close.
The Hollywood courthouse will be closed and used for storage.
The closures also affect less posh enclaves, in San Pedro, Whittier and Pomona.
In terms of human capital, the cuts will inevitably lead to layoffs. “The only way to reduce the budget is to reduce the number of people with us,” said Buckley.
The number of job cuts, however, is not yet worked out. “It’s a chicken-egg thing,” said the judge. “We’ve got to have a plan before we know the impacts and the impacts affect the plan.”
In dollars, the court needs to redline at least $56 million out of this year’s spending, a number that could go up.
The money comes out of an overall budget that is currently running at $750 million per year, an amount arrived at through cuts of $100 million over the last couple years.
The current round of cuts for Los Angeles courts represents their share of a $150 million pro rata cut to all California courts, with Los Angeles home to one third of California’s courts. That overall cut is in turn part of an even larger $544 million cut to the state courts in the state budget for July 1, 2013.
The remaining hundreds of millions will be taken from local savings accounts for the courts and from halting court construction projects throughout the state.
Part of the plan in Los Angeles is to assign the biggest category of big money, or general jurisdiction, cases to a master calendar court. That big category is the personal injury claims, from slip and falls to car accidents to any of the myriad acts of human foolishness that can result in injury.
They total 16,000 cases per year in Los Angeles, and they will now be pushed through two, possibly three central courtrooms on Hill Street in downtown Los Angeles.
The vast majority of those cases — 80-90% — require very few court hearings, so they are well suited to a master calendar system.
At the same time, the personal injury cases will no longer be pushed along by an independent calendar judge from start to finish, and, as a result, if service of process and other deadlines are not met, they can slip into limbo.
“Those cases will not be handled as quickly as they are with the IC system,” said Buckley. Lawyers can petition for an independent calendar judge, he added, although the standard to grant that petition has not been set.
The other huge category of cases in Los Angeles is collection actions, with roughly 80,000 filed per year.
Of all the small money cases filed in Los Angeles — those where the claim is under $25,000, that used to be called municipal court cases and are now called limited jurisdiction cases — a huge majority are collection cases. And half of them go by default with no appearance from the person pursued.
The result is simply paperwork and signatures flowing through the court system at a very high volume. Those cases will be consolidated into two hubs, in Chatsworth and Norwalk.
Those locations are tied to one of the unique aspects of both the court system and life in Los Angeles, its car culture. An inordinately big percentage of the collection cases involve car loans. The Chatsworth and Norwalk courts have lots of car dealerships in the area.
On the family law side, no courtrooms will close but the judges will also take on civil harassment hearings. “We’re looking at giving them more work,” said Buckley.
Probate courts will not be reduced but the cases will all be pulled into the central Stanley Mosque courthouse on Hill, representing a long haul from the far reaches of Los Angeles for the old and the lame.
The enormous number of eviction actions, 17,000 per year, will be centralized in Pasadena, Long Beach and Santa Monica. As Buckley, pointed out, those who are in difficulty over rent and mortgage payments are also likely to use public transportation and will “have to find a way to get to the court.”
While making all those changes, the judges in Los Angeles still want to hang on to reforms over the last twenty years that sped up the wheels of justice.
In the 1980s, civil cases were regularly knocking up against a five-year deadline for cases to be heard. But fundamental changes brought the delays down to one year between the time a complaint was filed and the time it was tried.
The big reform was to switch away from a master calendar system to an “IC judge” or independent calendar judge — who handled the case from start to finish.
“The way we got away from the five years was by going to the IC courts,” said Buckley at a budget briefing last week. “We became aggressive in controlling the case. We don’t want to lose that structure.”
But the independent calendar system will be cut back, and the master calendar system will be reinstated for personal injury actions and small money cases.
“We are creating a differential case management system,” said Buckley. “We will maintain the independent calendar courts for all general jurisdiction cases except personal injury.”
Master calendar cases will be sent to 29 trial courts spread throughout Los Angeles, including 10 in the main courthouse downtown. In addition, an estimated 15% of limited jurisdiction cases are expected to go to those trial courts. The judge noted that a lawyer can petition to move a case from the master calendar system to an IC judge but the standard has not been set yet.
An inevitable effect of the loss of courtrooms and staff is that the wheels of justice will slow down. In a trend directly tied to earlier budget cuts, trial delays have been creeping up towards 18 months. The next round of cuts will likely exacerbate that trend.
“They say, ‘Justice delayed is justice denied,'” said Buckley in an interview. “There is no other way to consider it. Other than criminal cases which have a constitutional deadline, all case types will take longer to get to resolution.”
“We are judges because we want to serve,” he concluded. “We want justice to occur. Our ability to do that is hampered by these cuts. We are frustrated by the inability to have cases resolved.”
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/12/04/52827.htm
Long live the ACJ.
wearyant
December 4, 2012
Presiding Judge Daniel Buckley: “The only way to reduce the budget is to reduce the number of people with us.”
Gee. Is it possible that the AOC/JC could grasp this wild concept? Why in hell’s name can’t the AOC be reduced from its bloated number? At this rate, one day the AOC will outnumber ALL court line workers — or as referred to in the article, “mill workers” — in the entire gawddamned state. The LASC look to be bending over backwards and torqueing in groteque positions in attempts to serve the public. Trial courts = working for the citizens. AOC/JC/CJ = fathead elitists only interested in serving themselves. Can anyone cite one example where this repugnant agency has done anything for our beleaguered California citizens? Just ONE?!
Wendy Darling
December 4, 2012
“Can anyone cite one example where this repugnant agency has done anything for our beleaguered California citizens? Just ONE?!”
Answer from 455 Golden Gate Avenue: “CCMS is finished and it works.”
Answer from the rest of us: Nope. Not even “just one.”
Long live the ACJ.
unionman575
December 4, 2012
And now a word from Steve Nash, San Bernardino CEO, and former AOC Money Man…
http://www.sb-court.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=V-uvBrAvSZE%3d&tabid=40&mid=395
Nathaniel Woodhull
December 4, 2012
Justice Hill’s bio (from his own site – below) shows just some of his “involvement” with the Judicial Council and AOC . He was front row – center- when HRH George initiated his takeover of the CJA. The only reason that Brad wasn’t elected CJA President after Mr. Friedman was because he was elevated to the Court of Appeals in 2006 and thus ineligible to serve as President.
As a CJA Executive Board member he was first and foremost for whatever former Chief George wanted. When the Long Beach debacle was first proposed, many of us were told by Vickrey & Company that this project would serve as the model for how courthouses would be built in the future. The public-private partnership was heralded as being the be all and end all in future construction. Seems like everybody involved has retired, is in the process of retiring, or underwent an elective frontal lobotomy and has no recollection of any prior discussions.
The Judicial Council awarded the construction contract to Long Beach Justice Partners (LBJP) – Meridiam Infrastructure. According to their website in June 2010: “LBJP will raise 100 percent of the financing required to complete the project. Other members of the consortium include:
• AECOM: Architect/Engineer
• Clark Construction Group, LLC: Construction management
• Edgemoor Real Estate Services: Commercial real estate services
• Johnson Controls Inc: Facilities management, operation, and maintenance.
Over the next several weeks, the AOC and LBJP will work together to complete the project agreement in order to secure final approval from the state Department of Finance. After that, the parties expect to sign the project agreement, enabling the consortium to proceed to financial close. Groundbreaking is expected later this year, and the new building is scheduled to be completed and ready for occupancy by summer 2013. After the court takes occupancy, LBJP will operate and maintain the building for about 32 years under a services agreement under which the state will pay an annual fee.”
Read: http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/longbeach-suppreport.pdf
Read: http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/pubprivpart-rfp.pdf
Read: http://www.clarkconstruction.com/pub/…/superstructure2011winter.pdf
Read: http://www.bondbuyer.com/issues/119_375/california_private_public_partnership-1014307-1.html
Read: http://www.pillsburylaw.com/siteFiles/Publications/RENewsletterSummer2011.pdf –
Read: http://www.gazettes.com/…courthouse/article_284d74b8-af86-5619-8a93-ab140bd0e012.html?
Read: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/07/business/la-fi-property-report-20120507
Brad Hill’s Bio:
* Judicial Recruitment and Retention Working Group, Chairperson (2009-present)
* Commission for Impartial Courts, Steering Committee (2007-2009);
Implementation Committee (2009-present)
* Policy Committee (2000-2003); Vice-Chair (2008-2010)
* Facilities Use Working Group, Chairperson (2009-2012)
* Working Group on Court Security (2004-2011)
* Bench-Bar Coalition (2002-2008)
* Kleps Award Program Committee (2006-2007)
* Day on the Bench Steering Committee,
Central California Coordinator (2000-2007)
* Court-County Working Group (2005-2006)
* Trial Court Executive Management Budget Working Group (2003-2004)
* Presiding Judges’ Executive Committee (2003-2004)
* Litigation Committee (2001-2003); Chairperson (2002-2003)
* Workflow Assessment Committee (1999-2000)
* Court Profiles Committee (1997-1999); Chairperson (1999)
Wendy Darling
December 4, 2012
Another dancing marionette, General Woodhull.
Long live the ACJ.
Michael Paul
December 4, 2012
Justice Hill was a judicial council member when this deal was struck. He owns it as much as any other judicial council member that failed to oversee this project. To suggest that he has no culpability is disingenuous.
unionman575
December 4, 2012
http://www.pwfinance.net/document/research_reprints/8%20long%20beach.pdf
Here’s the dirty dirty on the AOC Finance gig re Long Beach.
See Page 4, the Section Entitled California Risk..you are gonna love it……
Michael Paul
December 4, 2012
“The state owns the courthouse site and is leasing a six acre parcel of land to the private
sector for 50 years. If!the project agreement expires as scheduled in 35 years, and everyone
has performed, the lease will terminate and control of the property will revert to the state. If
the state doesn’t pay its rent,the private sector has the right to evict it, convert the property
to a profitable use, and operate it for the final 15 years of the agreement.”
Bend over and cough, California.
Wendy Darling
December 4, 2012
All those “lawyers” up in the Office of General Counsel at 455 Golden Gate Avenue, and not one of them can write a contract that doesn’t give away the farm to the other side of the table. First Deloitte, and now this. Apparently they all slept through, or just skipped, their basic contracts course in law school.
Serving themselves to the detriment of all Californians.
Long live the ACJ.
courtflea
December 4, 2012
Stanley Mosque courthouse? Someone needs to tell the author that the courthouse is not a Muslim house of worship but the Stanley Mosk courthouse 😀
The OBT
December 4, 2012
Thanks Woodhull for laying out in specific detail the arrangements pertaining to the Long Beach courthouse. I remain baffled as to why anyone at the JC or AOC would think this plan made any sense.The court funds some of the construction costs and then pays thirty years of rent to a private landlord ? No wonder the Legislative Analyst questioned this boondoggle. I have it on good authority that Mr Vickrey proclaimed when the Long Beach project was started that this would be a “model” for future courthouse construction projects.A model program indeed, right next to that other game changer, CCMS. The pattern is clear and we who care about our courts need to act to democratize the JC and end the insular rule at 455 Golden Gate that has led to branch wide financial ruin, layoffs and massive reductions in service to the public we serve.
Lando
December 4, 2012
The Long Beach fiasco is right up there with CCMS in demonstrating the significant flaws in Ronald George’s vision of a centralized and anti democratic branch management system. Now the legislature needs to act by holding a series of oversight hearings about how it came to pass that the taxpayers would pay over 2 billion dollars for one courthouse. The citizens of California deserve to hear how all of this evolved and who in the tower at 455 Golden Gate is responsible.
unionman575
December 4, 2012
It is a supreme clusterfuck.
Michael Paul
December 4, 2012
Here is an interesting tidbit: Non-appropriation mitigation: The AOC was to push through a budget change proposal for an additional line-item appropriation to fund the annual service fee. In the event that the AOC didn’t secure the additional line-item appropriation to fund the annual service fee then the partnership has the option to terminate the AOC’s lease, insist that no trials commence in the building and they have the right to use the property for commercial purposes for the next 50 years.
Page 11
http://www.cmaasc.org/pdfs/092712_verticallbcourthouse.pdf
unionman575
December 4, 2012
I like that Michael.
😉
Judicial Council Watcher
December 5, 2012
The Governor George Deukmajin shopping centre – a collection of 31 premiere stores catering to that little bit of lifestyles of the rich and famous in all of us.
*World class security makes this centre shoplift or takeover proof
*Subsidized by a generous land grant from the City of Long Beach and the Administrative Office of the Courts
*The exclusivity of 31 boutiques creates the opulent shopping experience consumers are looking for, creating a social centre for L.A.’s elite.
unionman575
December 4, 2012
Contracts anyone???? ACJ I want to see this records request….please…
😉
PROJECT AGREEMENT FOR THE DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, FINANCING,
OPERATION, MAINTENANCE AND MANAGEMENT OF THE NEW LONG BEACH COURT BUILDING between THE JUDICIAL COUNCIL OF CALIFORNIA,
ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE OF THE COURTS and LONG BEACH JUDICIAL PARTNERS LLC Dated December 20, 2010
Michael Paul
December 5, 2012
Isn’t that special. It took awhile to find it but when I did there’s only a teaser of the project agreement. It appears we only have a table of contents of the agreement and not the meat and potatoes of the agreement.
I’d like to see everyone make this same records request. Just block, copy and send.
Hello Pubinfo,
This is a three part request.
1. I would like to get a copy of the PROJECT AGREEMENT FOR THE DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, FINANCING, OPERATION, MAINTENANCE AND MANAGEMENT OF THE NEW LONG BEACH COURT BUILDING between THE JUDICIAL COUNCIL OF CALIFORNIA, ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE OF THE COURTS and LONG BEACH JUDICIAL PARTNERS LLC Dated December 20, 2010 and any amendments to this agreement.
It would be nice and probably save you processing numerous similar requests for you to scan this document and post it on the courts.ca.gov website. I’ll be happy to have a link to it circulated to concerned parties in the courts and the media.
2. Additionally, can you provide public records that indicated that the judicial council actually considered, voted and approved this project and its price tag because I can’t seem to find any record of judicial council approval of this two billion dollar expenditure.
3. On page 11 of the enclosed link, it denotes that a mitigating factor to the risk of legislative non-appropriation is that the Judicial Council and the AOC would submit a budget change proposal for an additional line item appropriation to fund the annual service fee. Furthermore it notes that if the JC\AOC did not secure the line item appropriation to pay for the annual service fee that the project company has the right to terminate the AOC’s lease and take possession of this building for the next 50 years. http://www.cmaasc.org/pdfs/092712_verticallbcourthouse.pdf
The question related to item 3 is this: Did the AOC secure a line-item appropriation for the long beach courthouse from the state legislature a) prior to the commencement of this project or b) any time since the commencement of this project?
thanks,
MP
unionman575
December 5, 2012
Thank you Michael!
😉
unionman575
December 4, 2012
http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/Long-Beach-PBI-evaluation-report-9-14-12.pdf
ACJ –
You can find a portion of it here commencing on page 160….
It would appear to be 174 pages in length plus Appendices and other attachments.
Yall have more juice in ACJ than this humble trial court slumdog…
Nathaniel Woodhull
December 5, 2012
Thanks for the evaluation report unionman575! It is a fascinating read. How is it possible that the numbers changed so much and the size of the project (square footage) could have increased as it did?
This will truly be the Judicial Council’s CCMS of 2013…
Webby Awards
December 5, 2012
I’ve followed this site going on three years. Those that run this site deserve public recognition for trying to save our court system and calling attention to the gross mismanagement at the top that’s shutting our courts down. They deserve a webby award for either activism or political blogging. Either category would do. Based upon what I see though I’m inclined to believe that they won’t pay the webby entry fee because they don’t want that kind of attention. Someone should enter them into the webby awards involuntarily and pay the fee for them because this site should be getting national attention it deserves – starting with the FBI.
https://entries.webbyawards.com/categories
Judicial Council Watcher
December 5, 2012
Thank you for the sentiment but as you guessed, we’re not interested. 🙂
disgusted
December 5, 2012
From LACCRA (Los Angeles County Court Reporters Association) distributed today, 12/5/2012.
“To All Members:
It is with great sadness that we forward the news of Placer County Court’s Layoff of All Official Reporters. This email is intended to bring awareness to those LACCRA members who currently are not members of CCRA and do not directly receive CCRA emails. It is suggested that if you’re not a member of CCRA, that you at least go to their website cal-ccra.org regularly and become apprised of what is happening to our profession statewide.
As official court reporters of the largest county in California, we are not insulated from such a negative impact. We have already been informed through the court’s preliminary reconstruction plan released 11/15/12 of the “Elimination of part-time court reporters in most civil courts.” We presently have no information when this will happen. As soon as information becomes available, our members will be informed.
Please be sure to read the LACCRA emails for more information as it becomes available.
Here’s the entire CCRA Alert Email:
“PLACER COUNTY COURT LAYS OFF
ALL OFFICIAL REPORTERS
CCRA is saddened to announce that Placer County Court has chosen to privatize all their court reporting services. A Request for Proposal (RFP) went out September 2012 from Placer County courts to solicit bids for court reporting services. After receiving several bids, the court reporter representatives have been informed by court management that a deposition firm had been selected to provide court reporters in lieu of court employees providing all reporting services, including criminal, juvenile, family law, probate, and civil. All ten staff reporters are expected to receive layoff notices as a result, to take effect no sooner than February 2013.
Placer County court estimates they will have a $2 million budget shortfall. The court estimates an approximate $600,000 yearly savings by privatizing their court reporting services. Staff reporters offered numerous concessions in an effort to stave off the court’s plan for privatizing, including offering to take a 15% pay cut. Local attorneys rallied behind the staff reporters by providing letters in support of retaining the staff reporters. All these efforts were rejected, and the court continued with its privatization plans.
CCRA has been closely monitoring this situation with the reporters in Placer County. CCRA has spent a considerable amount of time consulting with experts, advisors, attorneys, and union representatives concerning the legality of a court choosing to privatize all reporting services, and discussing strategy and the far-reaching effect this type of trend could mean for the officials in California. It has been determined that there is no legal restriction for the court to take such an action.
Please contact CCRA if changes occur in your area, so that CCRA may be best prepared to address statewide issues affecting freelance reporters and official reporters.
At this time, please consider making a financial contribution to CCRA’s PACCRA fund or CCRA’s Special Fund. We must remain diligent. Only through your help is CCRA able to continue the fight to save our profession.”
Remain vigilant!
Your LACCRA Board of Directors”
courtflea
December 5, 2012
Makes a lot of sense you think? Shopping for your Louis vitton luggage while mingling with out of custody criminal defendants! What a marvelous experience!!
Wendy Darling
December 5, 2012
Published today, Wednesday, December 5, from Courthouse News Service, by Maria Dinzeo:
Governor Sweeps Funds Out From Under California 58 Trial Courts
By MARIA DINZEO
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – In a move that caught the judiciary completely off guard, California’s Department of Finance revealed intentions to sweep the fund balances of all 58 trial courts a year earlier than originally agreed.
Judge Steven Jahr, director of the judiciary’s administrative agency urged immediate action from the courts in a letter sent out Wednesday, calling the plan “a potential crisis that would further cripple our justice system.”
He said the department contacted him a week ago saying the governor plans to cut an additional $200 million from the judiciary’s budget for the courts.
That money must be offset by court reserve funds, essentially the piggy banks of saved funds that trial courts use to tide them over in lean years, forcing the courts to spend that money by the end of June. But those funds are sometimes committed in advance and judges argue they are not as liquid as they might appear.
“Essentially, any fund balance over one percent will be swept effective July 1, 2013,” Jahr wrote. After June 2013, courts will only be able to keep one percent of their funds in reserve for emergencies.
H.D. Palmer with the Department of Finance said nothing is definite.
“Decisions on the budget are still being made, and no decisions are final at this time,” he said.
The battle over reserve funds has been ongoing since May, when Governor Jerry Brown unveiled the plan in his revised budget package to sweep all but one percent of trial court reserves into one pot.
The news threw the judiciary into a panic, and judges took to the Legislature to argue aggressively that fund balances are not meant to be used to offset the governor’s budget cuts.
When the governor’s plan to take away the courts’ reserve funds was revealed in May, Presiding Judge David Rosenberg of Yolo County said, “There is a vast, misunderstanding of the trial court fund balances, what they call reserves. It’s not like money sitting in a savings account that we can just tap into and use.”
He said that most courts have already committed their fund balances to obligations like paying commissioners, whose salaries are reimbursed by the federal government. If they are unable to pay commissioners because that money is being redirected elsewhere, certain court departments will be forced to close.
Reacting to the latest setback for the courts, Jahr said the judiciary has always operated on the assumption that the governor would give the courts two years before they were required to spend almost the entire amount of their savings. But it appears the Department of Finance had a different interpretation.
“I immediately sought a meeting with the Director of Finance to correct this communication based on the agreement that had been reached with the Administration and included in the Budget Act language,” Jahr wrote. “That agreement, to protect the interests of the public against assaults on funding the branch, was that those reserves remained in the hands of the trial courts to use, in their sound discretion for an added year, to minimize the impact of the overwhelming reductions on their essential court operations.”
Jahr said Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye will meet with the governor on December 12 “to communicate the dire consequences of this potential action and the need to reaffirm the commitment of our sister branches for the two-year spend-down of reserves.”
Meanwhile, Presiding Judge Laurie Earl of Sacramento will be leading the state’s presiding judges in further negotiations.
“We need to have a discussion with governor and Department of Finance to educate them on the impact this will have not just on the employees of our courts but the citizens of our community. The presiding judges will be involved in those discussions,” she said in an interview late Wednesday. “What I hope we don’t have though is another budget fight similar to what we went through last year but it looks like it might be.”
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/12/05/52862.htm
Long live the ACJ.
unionman575
December 5, 2012
A trial court reserve funds sweep in June 2013 will absolutely do in whatever remains of trial court functions statewide.
Lando
December 5, 2012
Rumors were rampant today that another big cut was about to hit the trial courts . Thanks Wendy for posting Ms Dinzeo’s coverage of the latest bad news. The sad reality is that by taking reserves away,the trial courts get directly punished and will inevitably have to cut back further and lay off more staff. Ironically it was the JC and AOC who wasted now billions on CCMS and Long Beach yet under the sweeping reserves approach they can sit back and continue to do little to reform their ways or reduce their staff in any meaningful manner. What a total mess. The people of California deserve so much better.
unionman575
December 5, 2012
Reserve sweep in June 2013 = …..
unionman575
December 5, 2012
It is time to pack the JC meeting on 12-13 & 12-14…
Let’s show ‘em some love JCW style…
http://www.courts.ca.gov/jcmeetings.htm
Judicial Council Meetings
Thursday December 13, and
Friday December 14
unionman575
December 5, 2012
http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml
12/05/2012 @ 10:41AM |289 views
Public Justice Nears Collapse In Wake of California Budget Cuts
Victoria Pynchon, Contributor
Will Reality TV Be Your Only Chance At Justice?
In a tersely worded announcement on the Los Angeles Superior Court’s “Update” website, the largest court system in the world describes drastic immediate cutbacks that could bring the delivery of justice to a trickle if not a complete collapse.
According to a November 27 “Court Update,” Court administrators announced that the system has been told to “permanently cut its budget by $55 million to $86 million” within the next six months. These draconian cuts will be added to more than $100 million in budgetary cuts over the past two years.
To comply with these drastic budget cuts, the Los Angeles County Court system will close ten courthouses and assign all personal injury cases to one of two Judges, each of whom will be required to personally manage as many as 8,000 cases.
To help its Judges deal with the enormous caseload increase, the Court will stop monitoring the service of the documents that bring defendants into court in the first place – Summons and Complaints. Monitoring the service of these documents is what permits the Court to manage its gargantuan caseload from the start – requiring parties to serve those documents and set initial status conferences or lose the right to proceed.
The Court also announced that it will soon seek local rule changes permitting it to terminate its practice of setting case management conferences in personal injury cases – conferences that often resulted in their dismissal for lack of service or the entry of judgment against a Defendant who failed to answer the Complaint.
The Court will also stop requiring the parties in personal injury cases to report back to it the results of any mediation held for the purpose of settling the case – an event which is often the sole reason lawyers are spurred to move their cases to mediation in the first place.
People with personal injury lawsuits – those for wrongful death, battery, medical malpractice, product defects and every other type of negligently and intentionally caused personal injury for which an individual seeks recompense – will be limited to ten dedicated trial courts in the downtown courthouse, plus a few other spread around the County.
Though the last impediment to getting your day in court seems petty, individuals with injury suits will not be told where in the County their trial will be heard until the day that trial begins.
These particular changes will not effect the other most common cases affecting individuals – family disputes and wrongful termination cases.
Other Cases Also Affected
If a Los Angeles County resident is involved in a dispute concerning a will or trust (“probate” cases) the road to resolution will be similarly stymied as the County closes seven to nine of its Probate Courts.
Those cases you see Judge Judy try – the Small Claims cases individuals bring against their family, friends, neighbors and local businesses – will also find fewer venues as the Court moves to close all but six small claims courts. Landlords will suffer as well when the Court decreases to four the number of eviction (“unlawful detainer”) courtrooms.
Alternatives to Public Justice
Finally, all court-run ADR programs – the free mediation services that settle thousands of lawsuits every year – will be shut down.
The Court concludes its announcement of local justice-carnage by “encouraging” (read: begging) Los Angeles County lawyers to make fewer motions and pursue alternative dispute resolution processes (mediation, arbitration) in the private market.
Private mediation in Los Angeles runs anywhere between $150 and $2,000 an hour, meaning that those with the fewest resources will be hardest hit by the Court cut-backs.
No surprise there. Commercial cases of the type I litigated for more than two decades will still have the Complex Court judges to turn to – a judicial nirvana where Judges are permitted to suspend picky procedural rules that impede the lawyers’ ability to get their cases tried by a jury – the threat of a jury trial being the primary motivation for the voluntary resolution of corporate disputes burdened with justice issues.
Back in the 1980s when my own father was presiding over the master trial calendar in the L.A. Superior Court, he routinely issued waivers of the State’s civil “failure to prosecute” law that required all cases to be tried within five years of the date of their filing.
Court reform followed, assigning cases to individual judges who were responsible for moving cases to trial within one and at most two years. The seemingly intractable justice problem quickly resolved. As a litigator and trial lawyer, and later a “panel” mediator in the Los Angeles Superior Court for thirty years, I can say with some authority that cuts of this magnitude could quite easily, and quickly, bring the wheels of justice in Los Angeles County to a grinding halt.
Every local small business and resident should be concerned and every State Legislator poised to commit more of the State’s resources to resolving disputes under the rule of law because chaos follows the deterioration of a functioning justice system.
Wendy Darling
December 6, 2012
Published Thursday, December 6, from The Sacramento Bee, by Kevin Yamamura:
Judiciary warns Brown is preparing another cut to court budgets
By Kevin Yamamura
Gov. Jerry Brown plans to slash another $200 million from California courts to help balance his January budget, possibly resulting in a “disastrous impact” for the legal system, court officials warned Wednesday.
Judge Steven Jahr, state administrative director of the courts, said in a memo that Brown’s budget writers are proposing $200 million less for courts than promised for the next fiscal year, asking the system to draw further from reserves to make ends meet.
The court system already absorbed a $500 million cut in the current fiscal year, resulting in service reductions and delayed construction.
The memo was provided Wednesday by the Consumer Attorneys of California. The group’s president, Brian Kabateck, warned that civil court services are at greatest risk.
“Average Californians are going to be lacking in court services they need,” Kabateck said. “Anything from civil jury trials to domestic violence services to small claims are going to suffer. They’re going to chop the easiest civil things they can first because they need to provide constitutionally protected services like criminal court.”
Brown’s Department of Finance spokesman, H.D. Palmer, said any presumptions about the governor’s budget were “premature” at this stage. The governor will present his 2013-14 plan to the Legislature in early January.
“The budget decisions are not final,” Palmer said.
The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that California will face a $1.9 billion deficit through June 2014 and surpluses thereafter. Though a gap remains in the upcoming year, it is significantly smaller than any year since the recession thanks to a recovering economy and voter-approved tax hikes.
The LAO estimated that courts would receive about $1.2 billion in the next budget, including a restoration of $419 million that was cut in the last spending plan. But Jahr said the restoration would be only $218 million based on his conversations with Department of Finance officials, including Director Ana Matosantos.
California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye plans to meet with Brown on Wednesday, according to Jahr’s memo, “to communicate the dire consequences of this potential action and the need to reaffirm the commitment of our sister branches for the two-year spend down of reserves.”
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/06/5034571/judiciary-warns-brown-is-preparing.html
Long live the ACJ.
wearyant
December 6, 2012
Hellllooooooo ?! Judge Jahr, Retired, helllooooooooo?! AOC and JC, hellllloooooooo! Teensy Tani, yoo-hoo! Has reality set in yet? WAKE UP!
Long live the ACJ.
Wendy Darling
December 6, 2012
They just don’t get it, Ant. Plain and simple, they just don’t get it.
Long live the ACJ.
unionman575
December 6, 2012
Every Court everywhere is going down, down, down, to core functions only mandated by law…
“Average Californians are going to be lacking in court services they need,” Kabateck said. “Anything from civil jury trials to domestic violence services to small claims are going to suffer. They’re going to chop the easiest civil things they can first because they need to provide constitutionally protected services like criminal court.”
Lando
December 6, 2012
Well I can sleep much better knowing our Chief Justice will meet with the Governor.
unionman575
December 6, 2012
The OBT
December 6, 2012
The trial judges of California need to now act to save their courts for their employees and the citizens they serve. The CJA and ACJ need to meet and come together to work out a plan and identify judges and other court personnel who can best articulate to the Governor and legislature why this sweeping of reserves will further significantly damage the branch and the citizens of California we were elected to represent . This is so significant that the judges of the state can’t allow this to default to the “insiders” at 455 Golden Gate Ave.who are responsible for the very mess we find ourselves in.
unionman575
December 6, 2012
This will be a very EXPENSIVE “experience” for our Branch…
We are talking several million bucks in Federal Fines…
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/05/5035012/calif-courts-face-federal-scrutiny.html#storylink=cpy
Calif. courts face federal scrutiny over interpreter access
By Bernice Yeung
Published: Thursday, Dec. 6, 2012 – 12:13 am
U.S. Department of Justice representatives will visit California this month as part of an ongoing investigation into whether the state’s courts are violating federal laws for failing to provide interpreters in many civil and family law cases.
The investigation stems from a December 2010 complaint filed by the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles on behalf of two litigants who were not provided with Korean interpreters for their court hearings. The complaint alleges that in failing to provide the interpreters, the courts violated Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits national origin discrimination.
These cases “are just two examples of many LAFLA (Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles) clients who have been denied access to the courts based on their limited-English proficiency,” according to the complaint.
One of the Southern California litigants described in the complaint is a then-72-year-old woman on a fixed income who filed for a restraining order against an apartment maintenance worker she said groped her and exposed himself to her.
In October 2010, she went to the Los Angeles County Superior Court and filed a written request asking it to waive the fees for an interpreter but was denied because there “is no right to an interpreter provided at public expense in a civil case,” according to the complaint.
She and the other Southern California litigant described in the complaint – a single mother seeking child support through the Los Angeles court – eventually sought help from the Legal Aid Foundation. The foundation paid for their interpreters at a cost of $300 in each case, and “based on that, they were able to complete their cases favorably,” said Joann Lee, the attorney who filed the complaint.
“But not everybody gets help from us,” Lee said. “There are a lot of people struggling through the court process because they are not getting interpreters.”
California courts routinely provide interpreters in criminal, juvenile dependency and family law cases in which domestic violence-related restraining orders are requested. But failing to make interpreters available in all cases could be in conflict with federal guidance.
According to a 2010 Department of Justice letter [PDF] to all state chief justices and court administrators, courts that receive federal funding – including the Los Angeles court – must provide free interpreters in all court proceedings to avoid violating civil rights laws.
Mary Hearn, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Superior Court, said in an email that the court “has followed California law with regard to providing language services and does so with highly trained, certified professional interpreters.”
The Los Angeles court spends more than $30 million each year to provide interpreters in 25 languages, Hearn said.
The California Administrative Office of the Courts declined to discuss the Department of Justice inquiry, but spokesman Cathal Conneely said language access is a priority for the state courts.
“Equal access to justice and to the courts for all, regardless of an individual’s ability to communicate in English, is a fundamental goal of the California judicial system,” he wrote in an email.
He said the California constitution and subsequent case law have been interpreted to mandate interpreters for proceedings related to criminal, misdemeanor and delinquency matters, as well as some family law cases involving a restraining order.
But some legal scholars said California is out of compliance with federal statutes – and national trends.
The Department of Justice has “made it very clear” that the Civil Rights Act requires state courts that receive federal funds to provide interpreters in all types of cases, said Laura Abel, deputy director of the National Center for Access to Justice at Cardozo Law School in New York. “State courts around the country have been moving toward expanding court interpreter services to cover all civil cases, and California just hasn’t moved that way,” she said.
The Department of Justice did not respond to questions about the California court investigation.
There are at least 27 states with written mandates requiring courts to provide interpreters in all civil cases, Abel said.
This year, the American Bar Association issued new standards calling for expanded access to court interpreters as a “fundamental principle of law, fairness and access to justice, and to promote the integrity and accuracy of judicial proceedings.”
Judge Erica Yew of the Santa Clara County Superior Court was on the bar association subcommittee that drafted the new standards.
“It’s really a travesty when people leave the courtroom not understanding what was said and what happened in their case,” Yew said. “Interpreters always make things better because there’s clearer communication.”
Yew said that in Santa Clara County, she is able to request interpreters in civil cases on an as-needed basis. Family members, friends and lawyers also have served as interpreters for some monolingual litigants in her courtroom, though she does not think that is ideal.
“California is unique because there are so many languages spoken here compared to other parts of the country,” she said. “Everyone I have spoken to (about this) universally has seen that we should have interpreters. They recognize that language access is key to having justice in California courts.”
“The obstacle is, unfortunately, funding,” Yew added. “The will is there, but like many other areas, there needs to be adequate funding to provide the services.”
In California, a 2006 bill that required the courts to provide and pay for interpreters in all civil cases passed the Legislature but was vetoed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger due to its potential fiscal impact.
In the 2008-09 fiscal year, California spent $93.7 million on court interpretation services. The California courts budget has been cut by nearly $1.2 billion since 2009.
State courts frequently cite funding as a barrier to expanding interpreter access, but in its 2010 letter to state court administrators, the Department of Justice stated that fiscal pressures “do not provide an exemption from civil rights requirements.”
California is not the only state to receive Department of Justice scrutiny. The agency also has recently investigated interpreter access in Colorado, North Carolina and Rhode Island.
Rhode Island is taking steps toward expanding language access in its courts, and Colorado now offers interpreters to all litigants, regardless of the reason they come to court. The Department of Justice sent North Carolina courts a warning letter earlier this year stating that it was at risk of losing federal funding; negotiations are ongoing.
According to a CSU Sacramento study [PDF] commissioned by the Administrative Office of the Courts, more than 200 languages are spoken in California, and an estimated 6.7 million residents speak or understand English “less than very well.”
View this story on California Watch
wearyant
December 6, 2012
Yes, Unionman575, expensive experience indeed. $$$ is what generally gets the AOC’s JC attention. Otherwise you’re ignored to death. I look forward to seeing whether this issue also disappears into the foggy night. Are the feds a match for the wiley coyotes at the Death Star?
unionman575
December 6, 2012
The Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Attorney is a match for the Death Star…..
😉
courtflea
December 6, 2012
This seems like like small potatoes for the feds to be investigating compared to all of the other crap that has been pulled by the AOC.