(Disclaimer: JCW is responsible for the title of this communique, not the ACJ)
A month ago, Administrative Director Martin Hoshino announced his “final decision” to keep the bulk of the AOC’s operations in San Francisco rather than move the entire outfit to Sacramento. That decision flies in the face of the recommendations made by the Chief Justice’s Strategic Evaluation Committee in 2012 and by our highly regarded state auditor, Elaine Howle, earlier this year.
Last week, apparently in response to repeated inquiries from Alliance director Kevin McCormick, the AOC quietly posted a 424-page report from an outside consultant. The report lays out six possible configurations involving the San Francisco, Sacramento, and Burbank offices and predicts the costs over ten years associated with each scenario. The link to that report is buried deep within the AOC website. We bring it to you here.
We strongly disagree with this decision. You don’t need to be an accountant to grasp that moving to Sacramento from San Francisco—the most expensive city in the state in which to do business—would save the taxpayers a lot of money. It’s what the SEC and the State Auditor expressly told us to do, and it makes sense politically. More specifically, we’ve got problems with many of the assumptions made by the report’s authors. For starters, the report compares taxpayer-subsidized rent in San Francisco—the reduced costs that will follow once lease revenue bonds are paid off in 2012—to fair market rent in Sacramento, assuming no other business or state agency would pay market rates to take over all of the AOC’s palace on Golden Gate Avenue. It’s like suggesting that you shouldn’t sell your house until you’ve paid off your mortgage. The authors also make the questionable assumption that moving the AOC would require the construction of a brand-new building to house 791 employees. We doubt whether the AOC should have a staff nearly that big, and whether that staff requires a custom-built office complex.
But whether or not you agree with the decision, there’s still a big issue: It isn’t Mr. Hoshino’s call to make. It’s the Council’s.
Under the California Rules of Court, Rule 10.101, Mr. Hoshino’s duty as Administrative Director of the Courts is to “implement the directives of the Judicial Council.” This rule was enacted in its current form in July 2015 in response to the finding of the California State Auditor that the Council “did not adequately oversee the AOC in managing the judicial branch budget, which allowed the AOC to engage in questionable compensation and business practices.” You will recall that the half-billion dollar disaster that was CCMS was initiated without a vote of the Judicial Council. Now a decision that involves hundreds of millions of dollars of branch funding has been made by an Administrative Director without the authority to make the decision. Apparently, once the Chief Justice announced her opposition to relocating the AOC four years ago, Mr. Hoshino never saw a need to involve the Council any further in the discussion.
The Council doesn’t seem to feel the need to weigh in on the matter either. Last week, the Executive and Planning Committee of the Council met to determine the agenda for this week’s Judicial Council meeting. Mr. Hoshino’s “final decision” not to move from San Francisco was never discussed. But item 15-446 entitled, “Judicial Council Facilities Update,” just appeared on the agenda. The agenda states further, “No Action Required. There are no materials for this item.” Does the Council truly believe that “no action” is required on their part, that they need not even bother reviewing the flawed 424-page report commissioned to justify the stubborn decision to stay in San Francisco?
Even the AOC’s own report indicates that Mr. Hoshino was never given the authority to decide this issue. The Judicial Council directed the Administrative Director of the Courts, as part of the Council’s long-term strategic planning, to evaluatethe location of the AOC main offices based on “a cost-benefit analysis and other considerations. (Judicial Council Directive 48, emphasis added.) So perhaps the Council can now explain why renaming the AOC and amending a Rule of Court to make it clear that the Council is in charge of its administrative staff has failed to keep the AOC tail from wagging the Judicial Council dog. The AOC is still the AOC, and it continues to waste taxpayer money without oversight while the Judicial Council gives out awards.
Those who need our courts deserve better. They deserve a Judicial Council comprised of individuals elected by and accountable to their peers. They deserve leaders who will take an objective look at how to save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. What they have gotten instead are empty promises of increased transparency and fiscal oversight, while a bloated and unaccountable bureaucracy continues to run amok. We all deserve better.
Directors, Alliance of California Judges
Judicial Council Watcher
December 7, 2015
Due to posting issues, this has been re-posted with some minor edits. One that added the text of the post {red faced} one that added a disclaimer for the title (since we figured that was a very important takeaway from the post) and another that fixed the link to the report.
Leading by example in flouting the rules of court sets a fine example for those that report to you who we allege have been flouting these rules for years.
This study is corrupted, mainly because it was commissioned by the AOC seeking a predetermined result of not enough savings, but mostly with bad assumptions that assist in making that argument. When you have garbage going in, you’re likely to end up with garbage coming out. It is very beneficial to study the garbage going in to assumption # 2 – moving the offices to Sacramento to get to the heart of the matter. Once you consider San Francisco’s vacancy rates and the possibility of moving HCRC from its super expensive leased space on Fremont St. in the financial district and backfilling AOC space and other state entities that are already looking for additional space in that building, the assumptions made are patently false. No doubt, the vendor was asked to look only at AOC operations without consideration to judicial branch operations.
unionman575
December 7, 2015
And the beat goes on…
😉
wearyant
December 7, 2015
Thanks for posting the ACJ’s excellent missive, JCW. Yes, the constant rule of GIGO is, well, constant in the AOC’s continuing outrage and insult to public funds. These voracious bureaucrats have grown desensitized to the millions and millions that pass through their budget! I saw a figure in the *billions* of that massive report done in the AOC’s favor. One’s eyes glaze over. I suppose it would take an extremely unusual number to get Marty’s attention? Oh, so disgusting. Tia Fisher, where are you? General, are you out there? [sob … sigh]
Meanwhile, long live the ACJ (as the AOC continues to suck our water dry).
Wendy Darling
December 8, 2015
Published today, Tuesday, December 8, from the Metropolitan News Enterprise
Feuer and Egerton Under Consideration for C.A.
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Gail Ruderman Feuer and Ann H. Egerton are under consideration for appointment to the Court of Appeal, the METNEWs has learned.
There are currently three vacancies in this district. Justice Patti S. Kitching retired from Div. Three on Oct. 5; Justice Fred Woods retired from Div. Seven March 31 retirement, and Justice Paul Coffee retired from Div. Six on Jan. 31, 2012.
Feuer, 56, has been a judge of the court since July 2005, when she was appointed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. At the time, she was senior attorney and director of the Southern California Air Quality Program for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a post she had held since 1993.
She is a graduate of the State University of New York at Albany and of Harvard Law School. She clerked for then-U.S. District Judge A. Wallace Tashima, now a senior judge of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, before joining the law firm of O’Donnell & Gordon as an associate.
She worked at the firm from 1985 to 1987, and was a deputy state attorney general, handling environmental cases, from 1987 to 1993.
Among her cases at the NRDC was Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles (2002) 103 Cal. App. 4th 268, in which she won what her client called “a stunning victory for environmentalists” when the court ruled that the building of a major shipping terminal at the Port of Los Angeles could not proceed without an environmental impact report covering all three phases of the planned construction.
The ruling wound up blocking the project for seven years, leading to a settlement that included significant pollution-reduction measures, and is credited with having spurred the joint Clean Air Action Plan adopted by the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
The jurist is married to Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer.
Egerton, 61, was named to the court in 2001 by then-Gov. Gray Davis, after having served as senior vice president and general counsel, West Coast, for NBC, in which post she was responsible for all of the network’s legal matters on the West Coast.
Among the cases she oversaw was NBC Subsidiary, Inc. v. Superior Court (1999) 20 Cal.4th 1178, in which the California Supreme Court held that there is a presumptive right of public access to civil trials under California’s “open court.”
In previous positions, she handled a range of complex litigation matters, including commercial, antitrust, defamation, copyright, insurance and professional malpractice cases. She was also active in the American Bar Association and Los Angeles County Bar Association.
After graduating from Occidental College, Egerton received her law degree from UC Berkeley School of Law.
She is married to Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John S. Wiley.
Both Feuer and Egerton have recently sat on the Court of Appeal by assignment.
The MetNews has previously reported that the names of Los Angeles attorneys Kent Richland and Bradley Phillips; Ventura Superior Court Judge Tari Cody; Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Rita Miller, Richard Rico, Helen Bendix, Ann Jones, and Sanjay Kumar; and Southwestern Law School professor Christopher Cameron have been sent to the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation as possible appointees to the Court of Appeal.
http://www.metnews.com/
Notable quote of the day: “The jurist is married to Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer.”
The very same Mike Feuer recently of the California State Assembly, not to mention the former Legislative member to the California Judicial Council. Oh, and “good friend” to Ron George and Queen Feckless.
Still serving themselves to the detriment of all Californians.
Long live the ACJ.
katy
December 9, 2015
This is a real problem in the branch. Too much nepotism and too many legacy jurists. If fuels the fires of loss of autonomy when judicial appointments are a family business.
Wendy Darling
December 9, 2015
It gives a whole new dimension and meaning to the phrase “Friends with benefits.”
Long live the ACJ/
wearyant
December 10, 2015
“Friends with benefits” Let’s see. Since sex can’t be involved considering these are passionless money grabbers, that leaves … YES, money! Money and power, power in order to get the money. Ahhh, same old, same old.
Long live the ACJ, JCW, The General and Wendy D.
GaryL. Zerman
December 8, 2015
Just as bad as the AOC/Judicial Council is the Cal Commission on Judicial Performance (CJP). For example, a 6/9/94 LATimes p.A3 article ‘Judges Flout Law on Closed Disciplinary Hearings, Lungren Says’ reported “Six years after California voters enacted a measure calling for greater access to judicial disciplinary proceedings, ‘an open hearing has yet to be conducted in this state,’ Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren said this week as he urged support for legislation to strip away the veil of secrecy from inquiries into judges’ conduct.” Lungren’s letter further stated, “… the system has thwarted the will of voters” as “… Judges charged .. have avoided public hearings after they ‘sought and received some form of secret writ relief from other courts in this state; … [in] “complete frustration” of constitutional provisions [which] raises “troubling questions regarding the functioning of California’s judicial disciplinary proceedings.'”
At around this time, the Sate Senate Judiciary Committee held a public hearing and called Director and Chief Counsel Victoria Henley as a witness. Senator Calderon asked, What do you do there [at the CJP]? Employees at McDonalds are under more supervisiojn than the judges are under at the CJP. Victoria Henley is still there.
It was only about a year ago ago where the CJP gave two (2) judges just a public reproval – where those judges had sexual relations in their chambers. See
2 California Judges Disciplined for having sex in their chambers
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Two-California-judges-disciplined-for-having-sex-5728796.php
CJP Decision & Order of Public Censure of Orange County Superior Court Judge Scott Steiner
http://cjp.ca.gov/res/docs/censures/Steiner_DO_Censure_09-02-14.pdf
CJP Decision & Order of Public Censure of Kern County Superior Court Judge Cory Woodward
http://cjp.ca.gov/res/docs/censures/Woodward_DO_Censure_09-02-14.pdf
Like the AOC, the CJP is also serving the judges – to the detriment of all Californians.
Nathaniel Woodhull
December 10, 2015
Dear wearyant,
Apart from living in a secure remote location, I still check in on JCW from time-to-time.
One might want to look into the background of the author of the report commissioned by Mr. Hoshino & Company…Mitzi Michiko Higashidani
She was the former Chief Deputy Director of the California Department of Technology Services. She moved on to become the Chief of Administrative Services for CPHCS. Check out the status of a certain whistleblower lawsuit: Susan Lew v Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (& Mitzi Higashidani, the real focus of the suit) See: Third District Court of Appeals – unreported opinion # C072304 – Sacramento Superior Court case # 34-2010-00083294-CU-PO-GDS) Ms. Lew asserts certain people retaliated against her for cooperating with an investigation by auditors into $26.7 Million Information Technology contract entered into by Prison Health Services without going through any bidding process….
Does all this sound familiar……
Did Mr. Hoshino work with Ms. Higashidani at CDCR?
By the way, didn’t Ms. Higashidani serve as an executive consultant with CGI AMS? Isn’t there a close relationship between CGI and Deloitte Consulting?
Keep looking JCW…there’s gotta be more out there….
wearyant
December 10, 2015
General: I hope your secure and remote location isn’t so far afield that a trip to a local library is required to find the Internet. Here’s wishing you continued good health and happiness wherever you are! 💖 Glad to know there’s a sort of “good shepherd” out there somewhere observing the continued mess of a train wreck known as the third branch. And ol’ Jer’s train, that must provide amusement too. No need to miss the discontinued TV soaps.
unionman575
December 10, 2015
http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/C072304.PDF
😉
unionman575
December 10, 2015
http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2013/sacramento-county/susan-lew/
Judicial Council Watcher
December 10, 2015
The fly on the wall imaginary conversation:
CJ: Clearly, with all of our normal go-to’s being thoroughly impeached by groups like ACJ, JCW and various unions, we need to get in front of this and get a trusted outsider to bring new blood and new, unfamiliar faces and names to the conversation in an effort to bridge the credibility gap.
The highest paid “special consultant” payrolled through the AOC: I have just the candidate in mind and have been working with him for some time. His name is Martin Hoshino.
CJ: Great! Let’s have him interview with the E&P committee to see if he is the man to do our bidding and bridge that gap.
(months later….)
The credibility gap widens by the day when Hoshino & Co work to preserve the status quo and offer cushy retirements, convenient commutes in plush digs in one of the world’s most expensive cities, no one is held accountable for unlawfully hiring and then continuing to use unlicensed contractors, rules of court that are supposed to regulate certain leadership decisions at the AOC are trampled upon, performance based initiatives becomes a platform for delivering sub-par services at astronomical price tags and the AOC continues to wander in directions that benefit neither the courts or for the benefit of all Californians.
And now for some viral entertainment.
Judicial Council Watcher
December 10, 2015
Now where might be our twelve days of an AOC Christmas 2015?
wearyant
December 10, 2015
Same place as our falling snow? 😃
unionman575
December 10, 2015
I wouldn’t wipe my a** with the CRC.
😉
unionman575
December 11, 2015
http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/12/10/audit-finds-it-security-flaws-plague-calif-courts.htm
December 10, 2015Last Update: 6:04 AM PT
Audit Finds IT Security Flaws Plague Calif. Courts
By NICK CAHILL
SACRAMENTO (CN) – Despite a 2013 audit revealing significant information security flaws, the Judicial Council of California hasn’t improved its control systems and remains “unacceptably” at risk for data breaches, according to a follow-up audit.
The council’s case management records and human resources data are specifically jeopardized because of its failure to implement recommendations from the original audit, the state auditor said Thursday. The audit also criticized the council for a lack of urgency in setting a timeline for implementing better controls.
In the nearly two years since the December 2013 report’s publication, the Judicial Council has not fully implemented the controls required to address the pervasive weaknesses we identified over its information systems and could not provide a projected date for full implementation,”
the audit states http://www.auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2015-302.pdf
😉
The initial report by State Auditor Elaine Howle recommended the council implement tighter controls and improve its Superior Courts’ information system controls as well. The 2013 audit found that in one particular case, the council had not updated its information security policy since 1997.
While specifics of the council’s potential security weaknesses were not given “because of their sensitive nature,” Howle said the council and its courts should implement improvements by June 2016.
In response to Thursday’s audit, the council said “years of severe budget cuts exacerbate this situation” and that the 29-page report will help in a petition to the state for more funding.
The council also said in a response letter that without increased funding for its 58 trial courts, it won’t fully implement a new security plan by the auditor’s “unrealistic” implementation date.
The June 2016 date contained in the recommendation for full implementation of the framework of information system controls would seem to be unrealistic regardless of whether the requested funding is received,” council administrative director Martin Hoshino said.
Howle questioned the council’s “lack of urgency,” insisting that the security problems have existed for years and that the implementation date is reasonable regardless of additional funding.
The report did recognize the council for correcting problematic billing and contract bid procurement practices since the 2013 audit.
Howle’s follow-up audit surveyed 60 of the council’s vendor payments since 2013 and they all were properly executed. Howle said the council has also improved its handling of vendor bids and ensuring that accepted bids were reasonable.
Judicial Council Watcher
December 11, 2015
This is disturbing but expected from a gentleman that suggests that changing workplace culture is ‘anthropology’ and ‘will take a generation’.
What the AOC wants to secure your information is to hire a consultant at some off-the-charts rate to study and then implement the required IT security changes even though internal people could do the job themselves and have it completed before tax day.
wearyant
December 11, 2015
Yes, ol’ Marty, the donkey’s rear-end, his simple, yet ingenious plan that must take a generation merely means wait until the third branch critics croak whilst simultaneously indoctrinate any malleable newbies to the “proper” way of thinking. Keep spreading that Kool Aid around, AOC. Just keep on keepin’ on with the bullsh*t. Hang on to your fancy, San Francisco garter belts, y’all just might make it!
Merry Christmas, All. 🎄 Long live the ACJ and JCW.
unionman575
December 11, 2015
🎄 Just another excuse.
wearyant
December 17, 2015
http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Commutes-to-San-Francisco-getting-longer-for-all-6685115.php
(If you copy and paste the above link in the search box of Facebook, you will get the full article)
Another view of the insanity of the AOC refusing to leave The City on the California’s taxpayer dime — many, MANY dimes.