Judges: San Antonio courthouse is crumbling, unsafe
SAN ANTONIO— Members of the Texas Congressional delegation are trying to get approval and funding for a new federal courthouse in San Antonio to replace a building that judges who work there say is crumbling and unsafe.
Four judges at the John H. Wood Jr. U.S. Courthouse spoke out Wednesday to the San Antonio Express-News Editorial Board about the courthouse’s conditions. They say the building is a crumbling relic of the 1968 World’s Fair, plagued by mold, asbestos and contaminated water.
“I’ve never seen a situation as dramatically bad as San Antonio’s federal courthouse,” said Senior U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra, who has presided over cases in courthouses—both old and new—across the U.S.
Ezra was joined by fellow U.S. District Judges Orlando Garcia, Xavier Rodriguez and Robert Pitman in speaking out to the newspaper. Members of its judiciary, led by Rodriguez, have been trying to get a new courthouse for at least a decade.
The newspaper reports that the courthouse has seen broken water pipes that destroyed case files; gaps in the foundation that allow animals to get in; and security problems including prisoners using the same corridors and elevators as jurors and judges.
The court pays $3.4 million in rent a year to the court’s landlord, the U.S. General Services Administration, but many of the problems can’t be fixed in the aging structure built as a theater for HemisFair, later retrofitted as a courthouse.
Recently, Rodriguez and his fellow judges have been trying to get the Administrative Office of the Courts to move San Antonio back up in the priority line for federal funding after the agency dropped the courthouse from No. 3 to No. 8 on a five-year plan ranking courthouses based on a perceived need.
Last week, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn met with Judge D. Brooks Smith, chairman of the national Judicial Conference’s Committee on Space and Facilities for U.S. courts, and Sen. John Boozman, R-Arkansas, chairman of a corresponding appropriations subcommittee, to urge the importance of a new courthouse.
In a statement to The Associated Press, Smith said the Judicial Conference has reprioritized projects on its new construction list, which “in no way diminishes the genuine needs of San Antonio, nor any of the other 10 projects on the list, the vast majority of which have been waiting for funding for at least 10 years.” Smith said the judiciary “will continue to work vigorously” with the General Services Administration and Congress “to see that the infrastructure needs of the branch are adequately funded pursuant to its priority list.
In late September, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo and the rest of San Antonio’s congressional delegation—U.S. Reps. Will Hurd, Joaquin Castro, Lamar Smith and Lloyd Doggett—introduced a bill aimed at securing $135 million in emergency funding to build a new courthouse. The request comes at a time when Congress has refused to fund any new courthouses.
“Moving the U.S. federal court proceedings out of this dangerous location is a public safety priority,” Hurd said.