At its meeting this Friday, December 12, the Judicial Council will decide its legislative priorities for the coming year. Their Policy Coordination and Liaison Committee recommends that the Council lobby the Legislature for three things:
• Extensions on increases, enacted in 2012, in civil fees ranging from $15 to $450;
• Funding for 10 of 50 currently unfunded judgeships; and
• Increased access to interpreter services.
You can read about the proposed legislative priorities here.(link)
We have no issue with the third priority. We agree that we should do more to make interpreters available to civil litigants. But as much as our branch needs the money, we should think hard about extending the increases in filing fees. If we’re really concerned about access to the justice system, we cannot keep the price of admission high. We note that the Governor recently vetoed a $35 hike in traffic fines for violations in school zones, regarding it as a “regressive increase that affects poor people disproportionately.” Civil fee increases have the same effect.
And as much as we need more judges, we can’t justify more judicial appointments when we don’t have the money to meet our current staffing needs. According to the PCLC’s numbers, it would cost over $14 million to fund ten new judicial positions—this at a time when many judges are operating without staffs, or sharing staffs with other judges. We need to hire more clerks and more court reporters before we create more judgeships.
Any discussion of legislative priorities, however, is pointless if the members of the Legislature aren’t listening to us. And they’re not. Last January, the Chief Justice rolled out her “Blueprint for a Fully Functioning Judicial Branch” to great fanfare. Its call for an increase of $1.2 billion in court funding over three years went unheeded. In a statement she released in June, she said, “[W]e remain focused on our Blueprint.” But at a press conference last Monday, the Chief Justice suggested that the Blueprint should be “renamed,” and conceded that it was now just a “reference document for the judicial branch.”
We have another name for it: It’s a dead letter.
We need to take bold steps to restore credibility to the branch. We need to commit ourselves to reforming our bureaucracy, not just relabeling it. We need to remake the Judicial Council, with its cumbersome apparatus of standing committees, advisory committees, subcommittees, and task forces, into a representative body that takes its oversight role seriously and that truly speaks for the judges it purports to lead. Our pleas for more money will never gain traction until our branch leaders demonstrate a commitment to real reform, and back that commitment with meaningful action.
Very Truly Yours,
Alliance Of California Judges
______________________________________
JCW: We have a few other things to add, like proof.
12.10.14 Letter to Judicial Council, Governor and Legislature
All over California there are judges who have neither staff nor a courtroom to ply their trade. They’ve been assigned to their chambers to perform administrative tasks or to engage in alternative dispute resolution because they lack the approximate seven bodies that make up a typical courtroom support staff. When you have nearly a hundred judges statewide that have no courtroom and no staff to man the courtroom, it makes no sense whatsoever to fund another ten judges that will have no courtroom or staff. Moreover, when you understand that each judicial position comes with 1.4 million dollars and approximately 750 grand is allocated to preparing a courtroom and you look how this money has been spent in the past, colossal waste is the first thing that comes to mind. Case in point: Contra Costa County.
Contra Costa County was funded with two judicial positions over a period of a couple of years. To facilitate the new courtrooms to accommodate the additional judicial positions, 750,000.00 was allocated per courtroom to ready them for the new judges.
So they took a multipurpose room and divided it into two. In one year that one position was funded, professional engineer Jon Wintermayer who worked for the courts delivered a fully built-out courtroom for a little over 190 grand. A few years later, when the second judicial position was funded, the other half of that multipurpose room was built out. But this time, Jon Wintermayer was not permitted to lead the project and hire his own contractors. Rather, “Team Jacobs” knew that there was 750 grand available for facility modifications and submitted their 750 grand bid to build out the other half of the multipurpose room. When Jon and his boss objected to the expenditure as a waste of funds, both of them were invited to leave the employ of the court.
On top of that, there are 85 judicial vacancies statewide and nearly 26 million was spent last year on things like Judge Jack Halpin’s unelected twenty year reign to the Shasta County bench via the assigned judges program. One of the written public comments that was suppressed by the death star in San Francisco along with all other written public comments was one from Attorney Barbara Kaufmann who spent several days composing an analysis on the needs of additional judgeships. What she was unaware of was the amount of judges working today out of their chambers because they have no court staff. Yet she composed a letter to Governor Brown, both judiciary committees and the Chief Justice and also submitted it to the Judicial Council written comments that shows 85 judicial vacancies.
She questioned the need for funding additional judges with 85 vacancies and no court staff to support them even if the governor appointed them.
Again, what she was unaware of was the nearly hundred judges statewide who no longer have a courtroom or courtroom staff to support them. When you factor those numbers in, requesting additional judgeships is patently foolish, especially since you can’t lay off judges and money must come from somewhere, so let’s lay off even more court employees to fund them so they can sit in their chambers without courtroom support staff. Furthermore, the constitution permits the Chief Justice to reassign judges based on needs yet it would appear that she has never made such an effort.
It’s akin to Imelda Marcos asking the state for more money to buy shoes.
unionman575
December 12, 2014
More nice work ACJ & JCW.
😉
unionman575
December 12, 2014
http://www.courts.ca.gov/28192.htm
Council Approves 2015 Legislative Priorities
unionman575
December 12, 2014
I know, I know, harsh, but oh so true.
😉
unionman575
December 12, 2014
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/trial-by-cash/383631/
Hmm…
unionman575
December 12, 2014
http://www.independent.com/news/2014/dec/12/courthouse-workers-boycott-christmas-luncheon/
I DO feel your pain sisters & brothers….
😉
unionman575
December 12, 2014
http://www.courts.ca.gov/28190.htm
My, my, my…
Request for Qualifications for Construction Management Services RFQ# JBCP-2014-04-BR
The Judicial Branch Capital Program office (JBCP) of the Judicial Council seeks to identify and select a pool of qualified firms to provide professional construction management services for identified courthouse construction projects through the State of California.
Requests for clarifications or questions must be submitted to
CapitalProgramSolicitations@jud.ca.gov by no later than 5 P.M. on Friday, January 9, 2015.
Written submittals must be received no later than 2 P.M. on Friday, January 23, 2015
Hard copy submittals must be delivered to:
Judicial Council of California
Finance/Administrative Division
Attn: Nadine McFadden – RFQ#JBCP-2014-04-BR
455 Golden Gate Avenue, 6th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94102
;
)
unionman575
December 12, 2014
http://www.courts.ca.gov/28186.htm
Labor Relations Academy I/II – Sacramento, RFP# CRS SP 126
Featuring special guest professor: Ernie Fuentes
Peppermint Pattie
December 12, 2014
JCW: You have mail.
Judicial Council Watcher
December 12, 2014
Always a pleasant gift this time of year…. please check my reply.
JusticeCalifornia
December 13, 2014
Unfortunately these judgeships were likely in the pipeline for a while.
http://gov.ca.gov/anews.php?id=4-2014-December
A little late and millions more public dollars wasted. . . .the problem with the late posting of Judicial Council agendas and reports is the unreasonably short amount of time to digest and analyze the information therein, prior to Judicial Council meetings and decisions. Exacerbating matters, the JC agenda and reports for the December meeting were posted a day late.
Too bad the ACJ missive did not come out until the 11th or 12th, and the 12/10 letter was not delivered to the Governor’s office till late afternoon of the 11th. Normally that letter would have been posted on the Judicial Council website shortly after delivery as a “written public comment” (it was delivered early the morning of the 10th), but the JC has suddenly decided not to post ANY written public comments online anymore.
LOL. We get it. Sakauye and Miller don’t really want anyone to have too much time to think about the propaganda they are spinning, let alone analyze it in depth and then comment publicly on it.
So query whether the Governor would have filled so many judicial vacancies in those courts that already have surplus judges (think Santa Clara, Contra Costa), thereby leaving more needy counties out in the cold, and eliminating the legislative option to reallocate those vacancies, if he had a current analysis of the stats in advance? And why only one appointment for San Bernardino (which according to the JC had 5 vacancies and an extreme need for judges as of 11/30/14), while Santa Clara (which according to the Judicial Council has WAY too many judges for its caseload) gets 3 appointments?
(Caveat: This is said knowing that the JC is the source of the stats in the first place, and God only knows the spin that has been put on them. . . .)
Sakauye appears obsessed with building her JC staff and and stocking her “empire” with more new designer courthouses and more judgeships. . . . .while there is no one to staff them, and courts and courtrooms are closing all over the State. More backbreaking fees are being piled on the backs of court users who are already getting shut out of the court system in every possible way.
Our CJ never has been the brightest bulb in the box but this state of affairs is fricking ridiculous.
Lando
December 13, 2014
Very sad when I read the great Judge Lance Ito sat in an empty courtroom with no staff and signed paperwork all day. How wrong is that? One of the best trial Judges ever was reduced to being a paper pusher due to the incompetence of the people running 455 Golden Gate. There is where the great disconnect is. The people at the Crystal Palace decided to take everything over and eliminate all local control of the courts. Yet they have failed miserably in all they have managed and HRH-2 and her minions have brought the whole branch to a new low. They are responsible for the waste of branch funds , not the Governor and not the legislature. If HRH-2 really cared about anything other than herself she would resign and let this progressive Governor replace her with someone that would listen, care and restore democracy to our once strong and proud branch of government. Is anyone at 455 Golden Gate listening? Anyone?
Wendy Darling
December 14, 2014
“Is anyone at 455 Golden Gate listening? Anyone?”
[Crickets chirping]
Nope. No one is listening. In fact, not only is no one at 455 Golden Gate Avenue listening, they couldn’t care less. The only thing branch “leadership” knows how to say in response to any problem in the branch is “more money, more money, more money.”
“More money” isn’t going to fix what is really wrong in and with the California Judicial Branch. And everyone that matters, especially in Sacramento, has figured this out by now. Everyone that is except for branch “leadership” at 455 Golden Gate Avenue.
Still serving themselves to the detriment of all Californians.
Long live the ACJ.