Ghost-town courthouse evidence of broken vow
South County was promised facility, but it’s rarely open
MORGAN HILL — For more than two decades, residents of south Santa Clara County were promised a local courthouse, so they wouldn’t have to drive 45 minutes north to deal with traffic tickets and other legal problems.
But the first new courthouse they got became infested with toxic black mold and had to be shut down four years after it opened. So the courts were moved from the $7 million ruined building to leaky, cramped portables infested with ants and rats.
Ten years later, a second, $60 million courthouse complex with stunning views of nearby hills opened in Morgan Hill with great fanfare.
Today, it is a virtual ghost town. Four of its six courtrooms have been aban-
doned, due to budget cuts, with nearly all the small claims, family, civil and traffic cases they were to handle transferred to courthouses more than 40 miles away in San Jose and Santa Clara. Two of the closed courtrooms now house cardboard file boxes stacked six high. And in the empty foyer, deputy sheriffs wait for the few visitors who show up for hearings in two courtrooms that are open just part of the day.
Yet the two-story, airy building still costs California taxpayers $33,000 a month to operate.
“Kind of a waste, wouldn’t you say?” said Judge Gilbert T. Brown, a retired Superior Court judge who was filling in recently for a vacationing judge. “It’s a shame.”
The moribund status of the courthouse and adjacent offices for government lawyers is the latest failure by the county and courts to deliver on their long-standing promise to put services within easy reach of South County’s 100,000 residents, officials there say.
“They screwed South County, the ugly stepchild — again,” said Don Gage, the former Gilroy mayor and Santa Clara County supervisor who championed the new courthouse and got the city of Morgan Hill to chip in $7 million.
The 2014 cutbacks that transferred all traffic cases to the Santa Clara courthouse have been particularly inconvenient — and not just for local residents looking to contest a speeding ticket.
Citing the long drive north to Santa Clara and the crowded traffic-court dockets there, police have been writing significantly fewer tickets to avoid sending cops out of town for court, a journey so timeconsuming it can require extra overtime pay.
In Morgan Hill, a police department spokesman said the number of tickets its officers issued declined 41 percent since 2014. That matters because police departments depend in part on revenue from traffic tickets and fines.
Under a new funding formula, courts receive most of their financial support from the state Judicial Council based on the number of cases filed — including in small measure, traffic tickets. Case filings as a whole have been declining statewide, including in South County.
The Council came up with the new formula to divert resources to needier areas, such as San Bernardino County. Santa Clara County, which had been funded based on the historically robust financial support it once received from the county, became a so-called donor court and has had to cut services and drastically reduce staffing. Court administrators had no dollar figure for the savings but said that by consolidating courts countywide, including moving services out of South County and Palo Alto, the court was able to eliminate the need for 22 positions and two commissioners, most of whom were assigned elsewhere, a spokesman said.
But the rationale is little comfort to South County law enforcement agencies and residents. In response to their complaints, Santa Clara County’s top court administrator recently authorized traffic court one day a month at the South County courthouse.
“The whole idea is to improve access,” said Court Executive Officer David Yamasaki, adding he’s committed to further expansion, if feasible.
However, restoring some traffic court services was also part of a deal county officials say they struck with Yamasaki in midJune. The county agreed to keep funding current and retiree health benefits for 79 judges, at a cost of $1.9 million this fiscal year. In exchange, county officials said, the court agreed to requests to enhance specific court services, including traffic court.
Morgan Hill police Chief David Swing said he was “grateful” for the change, partly because his department’s ticket revenue has declined.
But Yamasaki’s decision doesn’t help residents who want to contest a ticket and can’t afford to post bail, typically nearly $360 or more for speeding. They must still drive to Santa Clara, the only full-service traffic court in the county, where they stand in line to sign a promise to appear and request an arraignment date — back in South County.
“I can’t believe this,” said Morgan Hill resident Rudy Carrasco, who waited 45 minutes in line recently to sign a promise to appear. “We live less like two blocks from the South County courthouse.”
In Santa Clara, harried traffic clerks have about half the staff they had before the court consolidated in 2014, resulting in longer waits for people phoning with questions and a backlog on clearing people’s traffic tickets under a state amnesty program for motorists whose licenses were suspended because of unpaid tickets.
Meanwhile, for Morgan Hill officials who contributed millions in redevelopment money to the courthouse, the somnolent justice building is a deep disappointment. They had been counting on the arrival of court employees and visitors — and perhaps new law firms — to boost commerce in the adjacent downtown.
Instead, one of the few South County counter clerks left said she typically eats a quick lunch in the building and leaves a half-hour early because there’s so little for her to do, particularly in the afternoon.
“We’re not happy about what’s happening,” said city of Morgan Hill spokeswoman Maureen Tobin. “We certainly didn’t want an empty building here.”