New county courthouse scaled back

Earlier last month the Judicial Council of California announced that the Judicial Council working group overseeing the judicial branch’s facilities program was recommending that 13 planned courthouse projects across the state be reassessed with the goal of significantly lowering their costs.

Senate Bill 1407 was enacted in 2008 to authorize up to $5 billion in lease-revenue bonds for new and renovated courthouses using court fees, penalties and assessments rather than taxpayer revenues from the state’s General Fund, the release stated. Since 2009, more than $1.1 billion in funding originally designated for courthouse construction has been borrowed, swept to the General Fund, or redirected to court operations.

The working group stated that, “Projects that can be constructed using low-cost construction methodologies will achieve minimum cost savings of 10 percent or more.”

Projects recommended for this level of reduction were El Dorado County’s new Placerville Courthouse, Los Angeles County’s new Mental Health Courthouse and Siskiyou County’s new Yreka Courthouse.

“The ...

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