Joint meeting between county, city officials with state
officials
If they had not heard it already, state courts officials this
week received a clear message: San Benito County wants its courts
to remain in downtown Hollister.
Joint meeting between county, city officials with state officials
If they had not heard it already, state courts officials this week received a clear message: San Benito County wants its courts to remain in downtown Hollister.
A rare joint meeting of the county Board of Supervisors and the Hollister City Council Monday evening brought a standing-room-only crowd to City Hall.
Rona Rothenberg and Christine Patton of the state Administrative Office of the Courts listened quietly as 14 local residents, business people and city officials argued that a new courthouse should be built near the site of the existing courts at Monterey and Fifth streets.
The state already has determined San Benito is in line for a new courthouse. The 1962 structure is cramped and parking and security measures are inadequate. State officials initially planned to build a new 36,500-square-foot courthouse on Flynn Road, near the county jail.
That decision, announced last February, brought a speedy and vehement reaction from the community. The Hollister Downtown Association, county Chamber of Commerce and county Bar Association sent letters voicing outspoken support for a downtown site.
The state subsequently announced it would reconsider.
Downtown advocates have their eye on the site of Fremont School, at Fourth and Monterey streets. The one-time landmark has been empty for several years. The decaying structure with boarded-over windows is a downtown eyesore. In order for the state to consider the downtown site, it must be surveyed for earthquake faults.
City officials this week repeated their promise to fund a seismic study at the downtown site, which is owned by the city. The study is estimated to cost as much as $250,000. Hollister Development Services Director Bill Avera predicted that the study would be complete by June of next year, 12 months before a state-imposed deadline.
A Hollister firm, Earth Systems Environmental, was retained to do the tests, pending state approval.
The new courthouse, expected to be a $32.5 million project, is seen as the lynchpin to a revitalized downtown area.
The Bar Association noted in a letter to the state that the legal community has grown up around the existing site of the courts for more than a century, and so have a host of other businesses supporting the legal community and courts.
Local Bar President Paul Breen predicted a downtown “exodus” if the court were to be located on Flynn Road, a site he described as “a bean field.”
