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State favors land near current building for replacement project
By KEVIN McCALLUM
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
It’s a little late in the game, but Santa Rosa is still hoping the state can be convinced to build a new $180 million criminal courthouse downtown.
State judicial officials last year rejected the idea of constructing the courthouse on the site of the downtown post office on Second Street after concluding it couldn’t be done quickly enough.
The courtyard at the Sonoma County courthouse.
That left only one other site under active consideration, a spot beside the existing Hall of Justice in the Sonoma County administration complex.
But Santa Rosa City Manager Kathy Millison wants to make sure the city has fully explored whether a downtown site could meet the state’s needs. She set up a three-member City Council subcommittee last week to look into the issue.
“For us, it’s a long shot, but I really didn’t want to pass up the opportunity if there was any interest,” Millison said.
Council members Jake Ours, John Sawyer and Susan Gorin agreed to sit on the committee.
After checking with state officials about the progress of negotiations with the county, Millison said she learned the state still was interested in entertaining a downtown proposal, if one were made quickly.
The state has been working with the county for more than a year and expects to make a decision on a site soon.
“The window is slightly open for someone to give us a proposal that we cannot refuse,” said Jose Guillen, executive officer for Sonoma County Superior Court.
The existing Hall of Justice was built in 1966 two miles north of downtown after the old courthouse in the heart of the city was deemed seismically unsafe. A 2008 state feasibility report described the current courthouse as crowded and unsafe.
The state has been negotiating with the county over the possible sale of a 4.6-acre site beside the existing courthouse and jail where it would construct a six-story criminal courthouse housing 15 courtrooms.
The proximity to the jail, district attorney’s office, and other public services makes the location the logical choice for the new courthouse, said Jose Obregon, Sonoma County’s general services manager. The court doesn’t stand alone, but rather is “one component of a multicomponent system,” he said.
“I feel confident that the state and the county are moving in the direction of making the new courthouse a reality here,” Obregon said. He said state officials told him they consider the county site the “preferred” site.
But the negotiations have dragged on longer than anyone expected, and parking has been “one of the issues that we’ve been struggling with in terms of the county site,” said court spokeswoman Teresa Ruano.
A 173,000-square-foot courthouse will require 450 parking spaces, according to the 2008 report. Determining whether the downtown has a location that could meet such requirements will be the subcommittee’s charge, Millison said.
The city owns two parking lots on the east side of Highway 101 that might fit the bill, including a 1.3-acre lot between the library and the post office, known as the White House site. A second possibility is a lot at Ross and B streets across from Macy’s, Millison said.
The size of the lots will be a key issue. An ideal site, according to the 2008 study, would be 6.5 acres, one acre for the building and five for parking.
Since the state rejected the post office site, it has identified another potential site on North Point Parkway, a business park in the southwest part of the city, Guillen said.
Some feel having the courthouse downtown would provide a host of benefits for the city’s civic and cultural life.
Bankruptcy attorney Richard Koman noted that most of the city’s attorneys work downtown, and going out to the county center isn’t a great experience for them. The current courthouse is a “horrible Soviet-style hulk,” parking is “a mess,” and there are few services there, he said.
“There isn’t any vibrancy at all at the county center,” Koman said.
For a city split by a highway and mall and struggling to keep its downtown vital, a new courthouse can only help, he said.
“I just think a courthouse and everything that happens around that could be an anchor for revitalization downtown,” Koman said.
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These people are addicts. They are addicted to spending money we don’t even have. It’s clear now. They are suffering from the same insanity that a crack addict or an alcoholic experiences when their world is caving in and they think “Just one more” again and again and again. Stop the spending, Kathy, John and Susan. It’s over. The freewheeling spendaholic glory days are over. Just stop now. Get some help if you need it, but stop spending. Now. Do it now. Get help. You’re addicted and it just looks pathetic on all of you.
Add me to the list of people who think having the “new” courthouse in downtown is a ridiculous idea. Where is there room for such a building, where will the parking be located and what will the county have to pay out in personnel and travel, security costs for the transportation of subjects going back and forth to court????
There are only so many routes available to drive defendants to court, from the current jail. I see ambush or attempted escapes in the downtown’s future if courtrooms are placed there. How would that present itself to the downtown crowd? Won’t happen when a new courthouse is located next to the jail.
Best local officials rethink all aspects of this proposal.
The idea of having the courthouse downtown as a spark to keeping the downtown vibrant seems misguided to me.
** The courthouse wouldn’t be open nights or weekends.
** The only “draw” is professional staff and their clients.
** Transportation and security costs for the sheriff’s office would increase massively as inmates would need to be transferred by vehicles rather than walked between secure facilities inside a secured environment.
Not to mention…. where is there a spare $180M laying around to fund the project regardless of location?
I thought we’d elected a council that would be more respectful of taxpayer’s money. This is not a good start.
The council’s interests should advance the interests of the entire city. It seems like downtown is the first and last thing they think about.
No good steward of taxpayer’s money could think this was a good idea.
April Fool’s Day is a couple of months off, but I guess the City Council and City Manager want to have some fun. What slight of hand or hat will produce the tax money for this illusion?
A City Council cannot be taken seriously that even thinks in terms of building an unncessary, unneeded, and unwanted court in downtown. It tells us once again, that no idea, no dream, no criminal court building is beyond the consideration of a government official when spending someone elses money.
Do our city fathers have absolutely no common sense? Practicallity dictates,build the new courthouse adjacent to the current courthouse, detention facility and sheriffs building, not downtown.
Roger W. Hamilton
Santa Rosa
Treasonous to even look at this option.
Besides the whole on public agency ‘selling’ land to another.
We, the taxpayers own it already, why pay millions again ? Corruption to me. Horribly ill-advised, yet they are free-spenders of non-existing monies.
It is sick, and it should stop. Shame on us.
Any Pulic Employee working on this should be laid off and the whole idea trashed for now.
It seems our ‘leaders’ don’t get it.
And when they do, any proposal goes to a court. 1 Judge, 1 rule. Forget about the blue-collar worker, as they are being sued out of existence in Sonoma County.
Sad but true.
I read the article in the PD about “Santa Rosa eyes new downtown courthouse.” I’m surprised and shocked about some of the comments and the rationale behind considering the proposal to put a courthouse in downtown.
This is a poor and misguided approach for rebuilding our city. There are several reasons why locating the courthouse downtown would make our city worse.
1. “A 173,000-square-foot courthouse will require 450 parking spaces, according to the 2008 report. Determining whether the downtown has a location that could meet such requirements will be the subcommittee’s charge, Millison said”
Why not help our tax-generating businesses by keeping the parking for them instead of using up parking? If there’s not enough parking at the existing courthouse then expand it at that facility.
2. “Some feel having the courthouse downtown would provide a host of benefits for the city’s civic and cultural life”
It’s questionable how a downtown courthouse improves our civic and cultural life? Will people really want to go downtown to visit the court house, does this draw in tourists, will people visit Santa Rosa because we have a downtown courthouse? I know that the courthouse will bring lawyers, jurys, and criminals downtown that patronize our downtown businesses. But, honestly when was the last time you had a great memory from being in a courthouse.
3. “I just think a courthouse and everything that happens around that could be an anchor for revitalization downtown,” Koman said.”
In 20 years of living in Santa Rosa, I’ve visited the existing courthouse once. It’s hardly an anchor in its existing location and it will not be an anchor if located downtown. A downtown courthouse would be a drain on the city, use our scarce city resources, and it would consume parking better suited for business patrons.
This is ultimately a money grab and it’s not how we should fund and fix our struggling downtown. We need shops, restaurants, bars, public art, and events all of which draw people in, get them to participate and interact, and strengthen our tax base. This is not what I and I suspect most Santa Rosa residents envision the SR2030.
We can do better and deserve better.
BAD BAD BAD idea. The distance from the jail to the courthouse should be as short as possible. The DA and the PD shouldn’t have to hoof it across town to do business everyday. And heaven the DA or PD when the judge calls a case for a file that wasn’t pulled. Drive back to the office and get?? Get over it Santa Rosa City Counsel. It’s not about you! Build the new court house where it belongs- within the existing county center to serve all the citizens of the county. I agree that county center is dismal and long over due for a make over. Surround it with a few lunch spots, a flower stand, a coffee shop or three, a news stand, a quickie mart with a few grab and go gifts, a business/copy machine/mail center, a kids play yard and an ice cream stand and you’ve got an useful and appealing county center. Such a county redevelopment project was in the works. What every happened to it?
This idea is DOA. The cost of transporting defendents from the jail to downtown would be ridiculous.
The article states, “A 173,000-square-foot courthouse will required 450 parking spaces”. Where downtown is there a location for a 173,000 sq-ft building that has 450 parking spaces in close proximity? How would traffic — already congested during the workday — be impacted?
What we need in Downtown are businesses to attract jobs and add to our economy. What we don’t need are more parking problems and scaring away the people that come downtown for atmosphere, by bringing in host of gangbangers, meth addicts and chronic traffic violators. Keep the court with the rest of them. What we want is more stores and restaurants, and life. 180 million dollars to ruin downtown, what a joke. And as for Richard Koman go figure a lawyer looking out for himself and the other lawyers instead of caring about the actual public.
Sounds like they want to get on the bandwagon of collecting the pot of Gold that the state is getting by added fees on every ticket given out! Tickets have turned from punitive fees to REVENUE ENHANCEMENTS!
I am not sure how a criminal court would promote good business downtown. When I look at other cities where there are criminal courts all I see is blight and bail bonds and ambulance chasing attorneys. I don’t think this is wise to put this downtown when the city is trying to hard to get people to shop local downtown. I think this will be a big mistake…perhaps something that will be more positive in growth. This seems like it will be a negative growth.
Perhaps not the ideal moment to throw hundreds of millions of dollars down the gapping, insatiable maw of local goevernment. What part of ‘fiscal crisis in California’ do the city and county NOT understand?
We might try giving our newly elected Governor a chance to build some fiscal reason and consenses before our local officials start making every effort to circumvent state budgetary control and run off with their own gob of flesh from the decaying corpse of California.