(CN) – Santa Clara County’s Family Justice Center, a gleaming, eight-story building in downtown San Jose, is an impressive architectural specimen. It boasts a sunlit glass atrium, a bright and airy cafe, and high-definition displays outside each of its 20 courtrooms. It also came with the hefty price tag of $225 million and 26 years of debt for the court.
“There are couches in that building that cost $5,000,” Ingrid Stewart, the local leader of the Superior Court Professional Employees Association, told Courthouse News when the building opened last August. She added that most courtrooms and judicial chambers were well appointed with luxury furniture.
The building's unveiling in August 2016 triggered a strike, as the court cut public hours and slashed staff. Workers picketed outside the building for seven days in protest, toting signs intended to shame former head clerk David Yamasaki, who has since moved to Orange County.
Some judges say Santa Clara’s new family courthouse is just the most recent example of the judiciary’s tendency toward flashy buildings at the expense of service to the public. Others include a $556 million courthouse in San Diego set to open mid-July, and an even pricier one in Long Beach.
“It seems as if the Judicial Council prefers these fancy courthouses over people,” San Diego County Superior Court Judge Tony Maino said. Maino has been a longtime critic of the San Diego project, which started out with a $1.2 billion price tag, and of the judiciary’s construction program in general. He said the 22-story, 71-courtroom building doesn’t lack for glitz with its stunning views of downtown San Diego, but at a half-billion dollars, it should be more functional for the public.
“It has bling, that’s for sure. It’s like a pair of alligator shoes that’s falling apart at the soles,” Maino said. “I think it will serve the public about as well as the current courthouse does.
“It isn’t as secure as the present courthouse and it isn’t as comfortable for jurors,” he added, comparing the wooden benches in the courtrooms to rigid church pews. “It’s like going to church in Massachusetts in the 1600s."
The Long Beach courthouse has also been contentious, as it’s entirely funded by the judiciary’s construction budget. In 2010, the Judicial Council’s staff agreed to pay developers a $61 million annual service fee to maintain the building for 35 years. The Legislative Analyst’s Office said the total cost for the building over time would add up to $2.3 billion, and the strain of this financial burden eventually led to a difficult vote by the Judicial Council to cut back on dozens of other projects, nearly all in rural counties.
Excoriated by legislators, the Long Beach courthouse debacle led to a demand by the Alliance of California Judges for an audit of the judiciary’s construction program. The group representing 500 active and retired judges recently renewed that call.
“We have a duty to ensure that the money we extract in fines and fees goes to the best possible use,” they said in a statement last week.