Among the standing-room-only crowd at Monday night’s special
joint meeting at Hollister City Hall were attorneys, judges,
council members and residents who voiced broad support for building
a new courthouse in downtown Hollister.
Among the standing-room-only crowd at Monday night’s special joint meeting at Hollister City Hall were attorneys, judges, council members and residents who voiced broad support for building a new courthouse in downtown Hollister.
The state recently had reopened the debate over where to build a 36,000-square-foot replacement for the aging San Benito County Superior Courthouse at 450 Fifth St. The move came after many in the business community expressed strong public opposition over the state’s choice announced in February to build it on Flynn Road near the county jail.
Rona Rothenberg and Christine Patton, state representatives from the Administrative Office of the Courts, attended the meeting. After a PowerPoint presentation, the pair heard 14 residents, business owners and city officials argue the value of keeping the court in the “core” of downtown.
“If the courthouse moves to Flynn Road, you will see an exodus from the downtown area,” said Paul Breen, president of San Benito County Bar Association. “The United States government is based on public meetings, which is hard to do if you stick the courthouse out in a bean field.”
Marla Pleyte, another local attorney, pointed out that many of her clients can barely afford legal representation and they depend on her being able to handle their cases as convenience offers her to do so.
“I’ll often take simple cases at a very low rate, knowing that I can walk paperwork from my office to the court,” Pleyte said. “If I had to drive two miles to the court several times a day, I could not offer my clients, many of whom cannot afford another lawyer, the legal representation they need.”
Other speakers included Greg Swett of Hollister who warned against making the county jail area “the focal point of our community” instead of downtown, and Flo Pleyte said building the courthouse on Flynn Road would be a “nail in the coffin” for downtown.
Groups such as the Hollister Downtown Association, San Benito County Bar Association and San Benito County Chamber of Commerce all have opposed the Flynn Road location. The state agency had preferred the jail site over Fremont School at 335 West St. because the city-owned, downtown building requires seismic testing to avoid delays that also could increase the additional testing costs.
This seismic testing is estimated to cost $250,000. Because the old Fremont School lies 50 to 100 feet from two fault lines, the state requires that trenches be dug and soil tests be completed to determine if the site would be safe in the event of an earthquake.
The Hollister Redevelopment Agency has agreed to cover the expenses, and Development Services Director Bill Avera said getting the tests done by the state’s deadline of June 2009 would be “easy.” He hopes, however, to have the testing done a year early by June 2008.
“It’s important to know that the State of California is requiring these tests,” Avera said. “It’s (the Fremont School site) far enough away from fault lines that any other business that wanted to build on that site would not need to do geologic testing.”
Regardless, Avera said he has hired Earth Systems Environmental of Hollister to do the tests and he awaits the state’s blessing of the company before it breaks ground on the tests expected to last three to six weeks.
Rothenberg said losing state funds is “possible but not probable” and that as long as seismic testing is done at the Fremont site and a deed to the land is handed to the state by June 30, 2009, building the courthouse downtown would not be a problem.
Meanwhile, Rothenberg said the state would pursue “acquisition activities” on both sites to assure that if the downtown site is found unsuitable, the Flynn Road site would be “ready to go.”
“San Benito County is at the top of the list of worst courts in the state,” Rothenberg said. “The question is when we build the new courthouse – not if.”
